> In November 2010, a friend had someone who worked in the administration of Hebrew Senior Life call Carolyn and Dorothy Gay. They both refused to waive the fee.
> In December 2010, I spoke to a case manager at Brookline Housing Authority. She spoke to Dorothy Gay, the Director at the time, who agreed to have me placed on the waiting list for a one-bedroom unit, and told her I could expect to wait about six months for my name to come to the top. She also informed the case worker that the $5,000 turnover fee applied only to market rate tenants, not to Section 8 tenants. Dorothy declined to comment about Carolyn’s earlier insistence that I pay the fee, and avoided discussion of it afterward.
> Over the next several weeks, I twice approached Susan, the Leasing Manager, to ask if Dorothy had spoken to her about placing me on the waiting list, and was told she hadn’t. I informed her that Dorothy had told the BHA I could have a one-bedroom apartment, and was supposed to have told her to place me on the waiting list. Her disapproval was apparent; she told me, “We NEVER do this”, which was obviously untrue, as they had a policy in place of charging $5,000 to do it. She told me she’d speak to Dorothy about it. I never received a reply from either of them.
> At that point, lacking both other options and funds, I consulted an attorney whom a friend had asked to take on the matter. In March 2011, the lawyer and I met with Dorothy. Throughout the meeting, she was condescending and disinterested. It was clear she had no understanding of the situation nor did she wish to have any. She had no interest in discussing events that had led to that point; she simply wanted the meeting over. She offered me another studio and agreed to place me on the waiting list for a one-bedroom apartment, but made it clear it was merely a formality and that I would be on the list indefinitely. The lawyer declined to address either this issue or the issue of her employees’ former duplicity. I subsequently declined the studio apartment, as it was obvious that Dorothy was offering me the unit not to transition me into a one-bedroom, but to avoid having to give me one. I knew I’d have to continue to pursue it and that her response would be: “We gave you another apartment; what more do you want?” I felt it was in my best interest not to place myself in that position.
> The only thing that came out of the meeting that was even potentially in my interest was that Dorothy agreed to give me a letter stating that I was on the waiting list for a one-bedroom unit. I felt it was a meaningless gesture as Dorothy had communicated to me that I would be on the list indefinitely, but in any case, the letter never materialized.
> A few weeks after this meeting, an incident occurred in which H. was running up and down the hall at 10:00 PM, as had been his custom for the four and a half years I’d been living here. I was tired and exasperated, and shouted at him through my door to go back into his apartment. The next day, Carolyn sent me a letter accusing me of presenting “agitated outbursts”, and informing me that I was in violation of my lease and that if it happened again, I’d be evicted. She made no attempt to ascertain my version of the story or to discuss the matter with me in any way.
> In April 2012, I began working with the Fair Housing Officer and Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator for the Town of Brookline. He advised me to submit a written request to Dorothy for a one-bedroom apartment based upon the legal requirement for reasonable accommodation, along with doctor’s letters indicating the need for a move, and to copy him on the request and to let her know that he was involved. I did so, which resulted in two meetings with Dorothy in September and October of that year.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
History of my attempts to to get Hebrew SeniorLife to comply with the law - Part 2
> Several months after moving in, I began speaking with Andrea,
who was then head of the Social Work Dept., about these issues. I
approached her several times but she avoided involvement. At one point,
after multiple requests, she reluctantly had a casual word with H., the
man who ran up and down the hall. He denied engaging in his activities,
and that was as far as it went. I also began discussing with Andrea the
possibility of moving to another apartment, and I requested a
one-bedroom unit for the following reasons:
1. I’d be far less likely to hear goings-on in the hallway. In addition to the issues with H. and the caretakers, the elderly residents frequently shout at one another to make themselves heard.
2.If someone above me were moving around at night, it would be more likely to take place in his/her living room, not above my head.
3. My bed would no longer be next to the air conditioner, as in the one-bedroom apartments, the air conditioning unit is located in the living room.
> In April of 2009, I told Andrea I could no longer live with the situation as it was. She scheduled a meeting for both of us with Carolyn, the Property Manager, an extremely difficult and unpleasant woman who disliked me. The meeting lasted approx. 20-30 minutes, during which the following occurred:
1. They told me they didn’t believe me about H., assumed I was exaggerating and refused to do anything to curb him.
2. They refused to move me to a one-bedroom unit. They did agree, reluctantly, to move me to another studio, but told me I’d have to pay a $5,000 “turnover fee”. I was told the reasons for the fee were twofold:
a) It served as a deterrent so that the elderly residents, who tend to complain, wouldn’t ask to be moved for frivolous reasons.
b) It allowed them to recover their renovation costs (which was unwarranted; they did a fair job cleaning up my current apartment before I moved in, but they didn’t renovate it and it is obvious that they didn’t spend $5,000).
I asked if the fee could be waived; Carolyn told me it could not be. This was untrue; I have a history in property management and am aware of the legal requirement for reasonable accommodation (I also learned later that the imposition of this fee is in violation of both Center Communities’ policy and the law). They then told me to sleep with ear plugs. The meeting ended with no resolution.
> Shortly after the meeting, I approached Carolyn in her office and tried to discuss the matter further. She took offense that I was bringing it up again and became agitated and confrontational. I walked away and had no further contact with her for two years.
> A few weeks after the meeting, an inspector from the Brookline Housing Authority came for my annual inspection. I discussed this situation with him; he was upset about it and incredulous that they wanted to charge me $5,000. He urged me to speak to a case manager at the Leased Housing Dept. at BHA, which administers the Section 8 program.
1. I’d be far less likely to hear goings-on in the hallway. In addition to the issues with H. and the caretakers, the elderly residents frequently shout at one another to make themselves heard.
2.If someone above me were moving around at night, it would be more likely to take place in his/her living room, not above my head.
3. My bed would no longer be next to the air conditioner, as in the one-bedroom apartments, the air conditioning unit is located in the living room.
> In April of 2009, I told Andrea I could no longer live with the situation as it was. She scheduled a meeting for both of us with Carolyn, the Property Manager, an extremely difficult and unpleasant woman who disliked me. The meeting lasted approx. 20-30 minutes, during which the following occurred:
1. They told me they didn’t believe me about H., assumed I was exaggerating and refused to do anything to curb him.
2. They refused to move me to a one-bedroom unit. They did agree, reluctantly, to move me to another studio, but told me I’d have to pay a $5,000 “turnover fee”. I was told the reasons for the fee were twofold:
a) It served as a deterrent so that the elderly residents, who tend to complain, wouldn’t ask to be moved for frivolous reasons.
b) It allowed them to recover their renovation costs (which was unwarranted; they did a fair job cleaning up my current apartment before I moved in, but they didn’t renovate it and it is obvious that they didn’t spend $5,000).
I asked if the fee could be waived; Carolyn told me it could not be. This was untrue; I have a history in property management and am aware of the legal requirement for reasonable accommodation (I also learned later that the imposition of this fee is in violation of both Center Communities’ policy and the law). They then told me to sleep with ear plugs. The meeting ended with no resolution.
> Shortly after the meeting, I approached Carolyn in her office and tried to discuss the matter further. She took offense that I was bringing it up again and became agitated and confrontational. I walked away and had no further contact with her for two years.
> A few weeks after the meeting, an inspector from the Brookline Housing Authority came for my annual inspection. I discussed this situation with him; he was upset about it and incredulous that they wanted to charge me $5,000. He urged me to speak to a case manager at the Leased Housing Dept. at BHA, which administers the Section 8 program.
History of my attempts to to get Hebrew SeniorLife to comply with the law - Part 1
I've
been keeping a log of my experiences with Hebrew SeniorLife over the
past seven and a half years. It's only a summary - it consists largely
of bullet points - and it deals only with my efforts to wrest another
apartment from them (not with my attempts to get them to address the
various noise issues), yet it is still eight pages in Microsoft Word.
The first installment is posted below.
> I am 58 years of age, disabled with Depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and chronic pain, and receive disability benefits. I have a Section 8 voucher that makes me eligible for a one-bedroom apartment. Since October 2007, I have been living in a studio apartment, which was the only unit available when I moved in.
> Since I moved in, there have been numerous problems, the most prominent of which I describe below:
1. An elderly woman occupies the apartment directly above me. She frequently has her television and radio on at full volume, and the sound carries into my apartment. Moreover, she’s extremely clumsy and lumbers about continually, slamming drawers and cabinets, dropping objects and knocking over furniture. As she has insomnia and almost never sleeps, it goes on for 24 hours per day. She’s grown progressively worse over the years, has become more agitated and frequently drops heavy objects over my head late at night and in the early hours of the morning. The home assistants who work for the woman in the next apartment have been disturbed by it as well. I’ve tried on a few occasions to speak to her about it, but (as is the case with many people in this building), she’s profoundly deaf and has significant cognitive impairment, and refuses to acknowledge that she behaves in this manner. The management has consistently refused to address the issue.
2. A psychiatrically disabled man lives two doors down from me, and frequently runs up and down the hall at night for hours, talking to himself, arguing with imaginary people and slamming his door. I’ve complained repeatedly to the management, which has steadfastly refused to do anything about it. Moreover, he knows I’ve complained about him, and when we see one another in the hall, it’s extremely uncomfortable. For seven years, I’ve had to time my coming and going so as to avoid him.
3. Within the past three years, a woman has moved in below me who has a habit of moving things around in her apartment during the early hours of the morning and making a tremendous amount of noise in the process. This generally begins 5:00 and 6:00 AM; however, it can begin as early 4:00 AM.
4. Due to the layout of the room, in order to have my bed as far from the door as possible, I’m forced to have it next to the in-wall air conditioner. These apartments become extremely hot during the summer and retain heat; as a result, I have the a/c blowing directly on me during the night. This also interferes with my ability to sleep.
5. Over the past year, two of the residents on my floor have begun to require around-the-clock care. Instead of hiring professional caretakers, their families have chosen to hire unskilled people who congregate in the apartments in groups and come and go repeatedly during the day, slamming doors, having loud conversations in the halls, shouting at one another and talking on their cell phones. They sometimes bring their children to work with them, and they run up and down the halls out of boredom. Other residents have been disturbed by these people as well, yet the management has done nothing to address the problem.
6. For most of the past five years, I’ve had little-to-no hot water in the shower. The maintenance people have replaced the valve and adjusted it repeatedly, with little success. It appears to be a function of the apartment’s position in the building; I’m obviously on the same line with someone who is using an excessive amount of hot water. If I don’t shower by 7:00am, I have to wait until the afternoon for the hot water to be replenished. The maintenance staff has tried to diagnose the problem and repair it, but has been unable to do so.
As is generally the case with people who suffer from CFS, I have difficulty sleeping. The first five issues above have made it impossible for me to get enough rest. My depression has also become exacerbated. As a result of this situation, my physical and mental health have deteriorated dramatically over the past seven years.
The first installment is posted below.
> I am 58 years of age, disabled with Depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and chronic pain, and receive disability benefits. I have a Section 8 voucher that makes me eligible for a one-bedroom apartment. Since October 2007, I have been living in a studio apartment, which was the only unit available when I moved in.
> Since I moved in, there have been numerous problems, the most prominent of which I describe below:
1. An elderly woman occupies the apartment directly above me. She frequently has her television and radio on at full volume, and the sound carries into my apartment. Moreover, she’s extremely clumsy and lumbers about continually, slamming drawers and cabinets, dropping objects and knocking over furniture. As she has insomnia and almost never sleeps, it goes on for 24 hours per day. She’s grown progressively worse over the years, has become more agitated and frequently drops heavy objects over my head late at night and in the early hours of the morning. The home assistants who work for the woman in the next apartment have been disturbed by it as well. I’ve tried on a few occasions to speak to her about it, but (as is the case with many people in this building), she’s profoundly deaf and has significant cognitive impairment, and refuses to acknowledge that she behaves in this manner. The management has consistently refused to address the issue.
2. A psychiatrically disabled man lives two doors down from me, and frequently runs up and down the hall at night for hours, talking to himself, arguing with imaginary people and slamming his door. I’ve complained repeatedly to the management, which has steadfastly refused to do anything about it. Moreover, he knows I’ve complained about him, and when we see one another in the hall, it’s extremely uncomfortable. For seven years, I’ve had to time my coming and going so as to avoid him.
3. Within the past three years, a woman has moved in below me who has a habit of moving things around in her apartment during the early hours of the morning and making a tremendous amount of noise in the process. This generally begins 5:00 and 6:00 AM; however, it can begin as early 4:00 AM.
4. Due to the layout of the room, in order to have my bed as far from the door as possible, I’m forced to have it next to the in-wall air conditioner. These apartments become extremely hot during the summer and retain heat; as a result, I have the a/c blowing directly on me during the night. This also interferes with my ability to sleep.
5. Over the past year, two of the residents on my floor have begun to require around-the-clock care. Instead of hiring professional caretakers, their families have chosen to hire unskilled people who congregate in the apartments in groups and come and go repeatedly during the day, slamming doors, having loud conversations in the halls, shouting at one another and talking on their cell phones. They sometimes bring their children to work with them, and they run up and down the halls out of boredom. Other residents have been disturbed by these people as well, yet the management has done nothing to address the problem.
6. For most of the past five years, I’ve had little-to-no hot water in the shower. The maintenance people have replaced the valve and adjusted it repeatedly, with little success. It appears to be a function of the apartment’s position in the building; I’m obviously on the same line with someone who is using an excessive amount of hot water. If I don’t shower by 7:00am, I have to wait until the afternoon for the hot water to be replenished. The maintenance staff has tried to diagnose the problem and repair it, but has been unable to do so.
As is generally the case with people who suffer from CFS, I have difficulty sleeping. The first five issues above have made it impossible for me to get enough rest. My depression has also become exacerbated. As a result of this situation, my physical and mental health have deteriorated dramatically over the past seven years.
Friday, May 29, 2015
For years, I've been getting up at 6:00 AM to do my laundry. I have
to do it then, because it's nearly impossible to get a machine in the
laundry room on my floor at any other time. The elderly residents'
caretakers commandeer the laundry room during the days, and other
residents commandeer it at night - one of them being the man who until
recently was running up and down the hall.
There have been accusations that the caretakers are doing their own laundry, and this has been reported to the management, but with their typical aversion to any sort of involvement, they've simply said, "It's difficult to prove", and of course, nothing has been done.
There have been accusations that the caretakers are doing their own laundry, and this has been reported to the management, but with their typical aversion to any sort of involvement, they've simply said, "It's difficult to prove", and of course, nothing has been done.
It's actually against the rules to use the laundry room prior to 7:30
AM and they know I do it, but they won't say anything to me about it
because then they'd have to address these other issues, and God knows
they don't want to do that.
All these women do all day long is have meetings. It's unbelievable; whenever you go looking for one of them, she's in a meeting. I walk by the conference room, and I hear them in there, laughing and kibbitzing. It's a social gathering for them. They meet practically every day, yet nothing comes out of these meetings. No problems are solved, no issues are addressed. I have never seen anyone spend so much time engaging in meetings with an end result of doing so little.
Hebrew SeniorLife is nothing more than a cash cow for these people. They come to work, they socialize, they go home. The needs of the residents are of secondary importance, if they even make the list of priorities at all.
This is what the Jewish community of Boston has been subsidizing all these years. It is beyond time for something to be done about it. They take millions of dollars of your money every year, and they pay virtually no attention to your elderly mother or father. They simply don't care.
They've been pulling the wool over your eyes for decades.
All these women do all day long is have meetings. It's unbelievable; whenever you go looking for one of them, she's in a meeting. I walk by the conference room, and I hear them in there, laughing and kibbitzing. It's a social gathering for them. They meet practically every day, yet nothing comes out of these meetings. No problems are solved, no issues are addressed. I have never seen anyone spend so much time engaging in meetings with an end result of doing so little.
Hebrew SeniorLife is nothing more than a cash cow for these people. They come to work, they socialize, they go home. The needs of the residents are of secondary importance, if they even make the list of priorities at all.
This is what the Jewish community of Boston has been subsidizing all these years. It is beyond time for something to be done about it. They take millions of dollars of your money every year, and they pay virtually no attention to your elderly mother or father. They simply don't care.
They've been pulling the wool over your eyes for decades.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Follow-up to the confrontation I had on the phone with Rhonda -
Two days later, she sent me a letter as an email attachment in which she accused me of behaving belligerently toward the psychiatrically disabled man who ran up and down the hall for years until I called the police. She went on and on about how I have no right to do this, that I'm required to go to them to handle these situations, and that they have gone out of their way to address my issues. This is, of course, a blatant falsehood. They have spent seven and a half years doing next to nothing about any of the issues I have brought to their attention - and Rhonda is well aware of this.
Also, of course, the incident never occurred. I replied and told her the circumstances of my two recent encounters with this man, which bore absolutely no resemblance to her description. All that happened was that I told him, in an even tone, that if he didn't stop running up and down the hall, I would call the police - then I did. As she always cc:'s her entire staff whenever she emails me, I hit "Reply to all", so that they all saw my response. She didn't bother to acknowledge it.
My friend who's been advocating for me has been threatening for months to go to Lou Woolf, the CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, and every time he does, Rhonda tells him, "It's not necessary; I can handle these issues on my own" - which she clearly cannot or will not do. I think this business of telling me to call the police, then becoming angry that I did so, has her embarrassed and afraid, so she wrote the letter to cover herself.
What goes on in this organization is unbelievable. The entire Jewish community of Boston should be made aware of it.
Two days later, she sent me a letter as an email attachment in which she accused me of behaving belligerently toward the psychiatrically disabled man who ran up and down the hall for years until I called the police. She went on and on about how I have no right to do this, that I'm required to go to them to handle these situations, and that they have gone out of their way to address my issues. This is, of course, a blatant falsehood. They have spent seven and a half years doing next to nothing about any of the issues I have brought to their attention - and Rhonda is well aware of this.
Also, of course, the incident never occurred. I replied and told her the circumstances of my two recent encounters with this man, which bore absolutely no resemblance to her description. All that happened was that I told him, in an even tone, that if he didn't stop running up and down the hall, I would call the police - then I did. As she always cc:'s her entire staff whenever she emails me, I hit "Reply to all", so that they all saw my response. She didn't bother to acknowledge it.
My friend who's been advocating for me has been threatening for months to go to Lou Woolf, the CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife, and every time he does, Rhonda tells him, "It's not necessary; I can handle these issues on my own" - which she clearly cannot or will not do. I think this business of telling me to call the police, then becoming angry that I did so, has her embarrassed and afraid, so she wrote the letter to cover herself.
What goes on in this organization is unbelievable. The entire Jewish community of Boston should be made aware of it.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
I'm in mind of an incident that occurred last summer. I had a conversation with Rhonda, the Director, in which I told her, "Rhonda, I've given you example after example of your employees' apathy, incompetence and malfeasance. Whenever I do so, you handle it in one of three ways. If I give you an example of something that occurred before you took over, you tell me, 'I can't speak to anything that happened before I got here.'" She exclaimed, "That's right, I can't!"
I said, "Fine. So now, I confine it to examples of things that have happened since you got here, some of them happening right now. You handle that in one of two ways. If I tell you over the phone, you pretend you haven't heard me. If I tell you to your face, you smile sadly and say nothing." Her reaction? She smiled sadly and said nothing. She does this whenever she's backed into a corner or confronted with evidence she can't refute. It's her go-to defense mechanism.
Shortly after I began dealing with her, about eight months into her term as Director, I was trying to impress upon her the apathetic nature of the staff she'd inherited from her predecessor, Dorothy Gay, who had been forced to resign the previous year (the circumstances of which are fodder for another post), and getting nowhere. I said, "Rhonda, why not try an experiment? Call your employees into your office one by one, and ask them, 'If this situation with this man is as egregious as I'm being told, why haven't I heard about it until now? Why didn't I hear his name until he walked into my office and introduced himself, eight months into my time here?' I guarantee you that not one of them will be able to give you an answer. Each of them will hem and haw, look down at the table and say nothing."
And of course, she smiled sadly and said nothing, and never did as I suggested. When I began our "dialogue" last summer, whenever I would mention anyone else on the staff, she would exclaim, "Oh, isn't she WONDERFUL!" She has a need to think that everyone and everything around her is just roses all of the time.
I now have to retain a lawyer because this woman is impossible to deal with. She never backs down and is never wrong. As I said in the previous post, Hebrew SeniorLife has done the residents of this facility - indeed, the entire Jewish community of Boston - a terrible disservice by placing this woman in charge. It is nothing less than a violation of trust.
They should be deeply ashamed.
I said, "Fine. So now, I confine it to examples of things that have happened since you got here, some of them happening right now. You handle that in one of two ways. If I tell you over the phone, you pretend you haven't heard me. If I tell you to your face, you smile sadly and say nothing." Her reaction? She smiled sadly and said nothing. She does this whenever she's backed into a corner or confronted with evidence she can't refute. It's her go-to defense mechanism.
Shortly after I began dealing with her, about eight months into her term as Director, I was trying to impress upon her the apathetic nature of the staff she'd inherited from her predecessor, Dorothy Gay, who had been forced to resign the previous year (the circumstances of which are fodder for another post), and getting nowhere. I said, "Rhonda, why not try an experiment? Call your employees into your office one by one, and ask them, 'If this situation with this man is as egregious as I'm being told, why haven't I heard about it until now? Why didn't I hear his name until he walked into my office and introduced himself, eight months into my time here?' I guarantee you that not one of them will be able to give you an answer. Each of them will hem and haw, look down at the table and say nothing."
And of course, she smiled sadly and said nothing, and never did as I suggested. When I began our "dialogue" last summer, whenever I would mention anyone else on the staff, she would exclaim, "Oh, isn't she WONDERFUL!" She has a need to think that everyone and everything around her is just roses all of the time.
I now have to retain a lawyer because this woman is impossible to deal with. She never backs down and is never wrong. As I said in the previous post, Hebrew SeniorLife has done the residents of this facility - indeed, the entire Jewish community of Boston - a terrible disservice by placing this woman in charge. It is nothing less than a violation of trust.
They should be deeply ashamed.
Largest Nonprofit Organizations in Massachusetts - Boston Business Journal
From Boston Business Journal, September 2015:
Hebrew SeniorLife is the fourth largest nonprofit in Massachusetts with revenues of over 200 million dollars per year, but apparently they feel they can't afford to make the accommodations I asked for, nor do they feel they can afford to hire competent, caring, qualified staff - in other words, people who would actually be willing to do their jobs.
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/subscriber-only/2016/09/09/nonprofit-organizations.html
Largest Nonprofit Organizations in Massachusetts
Hebrew SeniorLife is the fourth largest nonprofit in Massachusetts with revenues of over 200 million dollars per year, but apparently they feel they can't afford to make the accommodations I asked for, nor do they feel they can afford to hire competent, caring, qualified staff - in other words, people who would actually be willing to do their jobs.
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/subscriber-only/2016/09/09/nonprofit-organizations.html
Monday, May 4, 2015
The Director of Center Communities, the facility in which I reside, is a woman by the name of Rhonda. I've been dealing with Rhonda for a little over a year, beginning about eight months after she was hired for the position. Each issue I've brought to her (not that I've brought her much, as I could see early on who she was) has been handled the same way; she expresses faux sympathy and hands me off to one of her subordinates who does virtually nothing. As I mentioned in a previous post, both she and one of those subordinates encouraged me repeatedly to call the police, because they simply cannot be bothered to do their jobs.
Dealing with Rhonda over the noise issues and trying to wrest another apartment from her has been an ongoing odyssey of posturing, obstruction, deception and psychological games, and has been destructive to my health. After six months, I couldn't deal with her any longer, so my closest friend took over and began to advocate on my behalf. He's retired, but he used to employ Teamsters, and he has found Rhonda to be utterly intractable and impossible to deal with.
After months of our running around in circles with her, Rhonda finally offered me an acceptable apartment. I requested certain modifications, and she had the Director of Maintenance and myself perform weeks of research and legwork, implying that at least some of it would be done. She sat on the information for a week, then emailed me to tell me, "We're doing nothing", and presented herself as a saint merely for giving me the apartment (to which I am legally entitled) and performing the same renovations they perform in every other apartment in this 44 year-old building as people die or move out.
I was on the phone this afternoon in a conference call with Rhonda and my friend. Rhonda threw up roadblock after roadblock, refusing to make the slightest modification or to allow us to do so. Talking to her is impossible to begin with; she pretends to listen until it's her turn to speak, then she tells you, essentially, that she is right, you are wrong and its going to be done her way. Arguing with her is equally futile; she merely repeats the same things over and over like a robot, and seems to think she's somehow communicating. The tragic irony is that she presents herself as a listener, communicator and problem solver - and she is not even remotely any of these things.
As the argument progressed, I was getting pretty hot and was raising my voice. At one point, she said, "I'm trying to help you", which was a baldfaced lie because our "relationship" has become purely a pissing contest. I said, "Yeah? Then why don't you deal with any of the noise issues I've brought you over the past year, instead of telling me to call the police?" I then started to say, "And by the way, the police are appalled that you're telling residents to call them instead of dealing with these issues in-house" (which is true), but I only got as far as "The police are appalled... ", at which point she interrupted me and said, icily and in an accusatory tone, "I WISH you wouldn't call the police."
Well, I lost it. I shouted at her, "YOU told me repeatedly to call them! Jill [the Director of Community Life, the subordinate to whom Rhonda handed me off months ago] told me on at least two occasions, 'I support your decision. I ENCOURAGE you to call the police. We think of the police as our partners!'" I then said to my friend, "This is the reason I wanted to go directly to Lou Woolf [the CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife] six months ago. This woman has been full of bullshit from day one. She is a world class phony." Rhonda then got her hackles up because I was calling her out, and said, "If you're going to talk that way... ." I hung up on her.
My friend called me about ten minutes later and told me, "I worked on her from the moment you got off the phone, but she wouldn't budge." I said, "I suppose she didn't admit any wrongdoing in telling me to call the police, then behaving as though I were at fault for doing so." He replied, "Hey, she isn't going to change who she is." No, she isn't.
I'm turning the entire thing over to an attorney, and he can go to Hebrew SeniorLife's upper management. It's time they were forced to confront the horrendous mistake they made in hiring Rhonda. She's in way over her head; she has terrible administrative and personal skills and Hebrew SeniorLife has violated the trust of the residents of these buildings and their families by placing her in this position of authority.
Dealing with Rhonda over the noise issues and trying to wrest another apartment from her has been an ongoing odyssey of posturing, obstruction, deception and psychological games, and has been destructive to my health. After six months, I couldn't deal with her any longer, so my closest friend took over and began to advocate on my behalf. He's retired, but he used to employ Teamsters, and he has found Rhonda to be utterly intractable and impossible to deal with.
After months of our running around in circles with her, Rhonda finally offered me an acceptable apartment. I requested certain modifications, and she had the Director of Maintenance and myself perform weeks of research and legwork, implying that at least some of it would be done. She sat on the information for a week, then emailed me to tell me, "We're doing nothing", and presented herself as a saint merely for giving me the apartment (to which I am legally entitled) and performing the same renovations they perform in every other apartment in this 44 year-old building as people die or move out.
I was on the phone this afternoon in a conference call with Rhonda and my friend. Rhonda threw up roadblock after roadblock, refusing to make the slightest modification or to allow us to do so. Talking to her is impossible to begin with; she pretends to listen until it's her turn to speak, then she tells you, essentially, that she is right, you are wrong and its going to be done her way. Arguing with her is equally futile; she merely repeats the same things over and over like a robot, and seems to think she's somehow communicating. The tragic irony is that she presents herself as a listener, communicator and problem solver - and she is not even remotely any of these things.
As the argument progressed, I was getting pretty hot and was raising my voice. At one point, she said, "I'm trying to help you", which was a baldfaced lie because our "relationship" has become purely a pissing contest. I said, "Yeah? Then why don't you deal with any of the noise issues I've brought you over the past year, instead of telling me to call the police?" I then started to say, "And by the way, the police are appalled that you're telling residents to call them instead of dealing with these issues in-house" (which is true), but I only got as far as "The police are appalled... ", at which point she interrupted me and said, icily and in an accusatory tone, "I WISH you wouldn't call the police."
Well, I lost it. I shouted at her, "YOU told me repeatedly to call them! Jill [the Director of Community Life, the subordinate to whom Rhonda handed me off months ago] told me on at least two occasions, 'I support your decision. I ENCOURAGE you to call the police. We think of the police as our partners!'" I then said to my friend, "This is the reason I wanted to go directly to Lou Woolf [the CEO of Hebrew SeniorLife] six months ago. This woman has been full of bullshit from day one. She is a world class phony." Rhonda then got her hackles up because I was calling her out, and said, "If you're going to talk that way... ." I hung up on her.
My friend called me about ten minutes later and told me, "I worked on her from the moment you got off the phone, but she wouldn't budge." I said, "I suppose she didn't admit any wrongdoing in telling me to call the police, then behaving as though I were at fault for doing so." He replied, "Hey, she isn't going to change who she is." No, she isn't.
I'm turning the entire thing over to an attorney, and he can go to Hebrew SeniorLife's upper management. It's time they were forced to confront the horrendous mistake they made in hiring Rhonda. She's in way over her head; she has terrible administrative and personal skills and Hebrew SeniorLife has violated the trust of the residents of these buildings and their families by placing her in this position of authority.
The development in which I reside is Center Communities of Brookline,
which is a division of Hebrew SeniorLife. It is a cluster of three
buildings erected over forty years ago by a family who sold it to HSL
about twelve years ago at a huge profit. The buildings are terribly
constructed; any corner they could cut, anything they could skip, they
did. Hebrew SeniorLIfe has made a few improvements since they purchased
the property, but not many.
There is no insulation in the walls of my 44 year-old building and the floors are spaced more closely together than code would probably allow for today, and sound travels in a manner I’ve never seen in another apartment building. This has exacerbated the many noise issues I’ve had.
A few months ago, a young woman who lives diagonally above me began making a loud tapping sound. It begins as early as 6:00am - it’s woken me up on more than one occasion - and continues periodically throughout the day until late at night. There is also a loud “thunk” that comes from her apartment at all hours that startles the hell out of me, and I never know when it’s coming. I have no idea of what she’s doing to make either of these sounds. The head of maintenance has heard the tapping as well as he’s walked the halls in the morning, and has reported it to the management.
Recently, I complained in writing to the Director of Community Life (everyone here is a “Director”), who told me, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will share with the social service team and [the head of maintenance] to come up with a plan to speak with her.” Of course, as is typical, absolutely nothing has been done. This is how they operate; they do nothing and wait for problems to resolve themselves.
Another issue is that people are allowed to remain here far longer than they should be. There are many elderly people in advanced stages of mental and physical deterioration who belong in nursing facilities, or at the very least, assisted care facilities. I tried to discuss this with the Director of the facility last summer, when she had been here for about a year. She told me, “This is Independent Living. Independent Living means that people are allowed to make whatever decisions they wish about their own care, whether or not they are decisions with which you or I would agree.”
I told her, “That is NOT what Independent Living means. In an Independent Living facility, people are supposed to remain only as long as they can do so with relative independence. They can have help, of course, but when they require care all day every day, they’re supposed to be moved on to assisted living facilities, and when they require around-the-clock care, they’re supposed to be in nursing facilities. You are selectively interpreting the principles underlying the Independent Living model in order to rationalize your fear of confrontation.” Of course, she was having none of it. She smiled condescendingly, shook her head and said, “No, that’s what Independent Living means… .” She has absolutely no idea of what she’s talking about or what she’s doing.
Last year, I found a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s sitting in a chair on my floor in a state of confusion. She was convinced the building management had stolen her furniture and was searching for her daughter. I had to walk her back to her apartment on another floor. I got on the phone with the daughter, who told me, “They [the Social Services department] are supposed to be monitoring her.” I told her if she was waiting for the social workers here to do their jobs, she’d be waiting for a long time. She replied that she now understood as much, and would have her mother’s caretakers come in for longer hours, but the woman clearly needed to be in an Alzheimer’s facility. I told the management about it, and of course, again, they did nothing.
Apparently, doing nothing is the default state in the social services industry these days.
There is no insulation in the walls of my 44 year-old building and the floors are spaced more closely together than code would probably allow for today, and sound travels in a manner I’ve never seen in another apartment building. This has exacerbated the many noise issues I’ve had.
A few months ago, a young woman who lives diagonally above me began making a loud tapping sound. It begins as early as 6:00am - it’s woken me up on more than one occasion - and continues periodically throughout the day until late at night. There is also a loud “thunk” that comes from her apartment at all hours that startles the hell out of me, and I never know when it’s coming. I have no idea of what she’s doing to make either of these sounds. The head of maintenance has heard the tapping as well as he’s walked the halls in the morning, and has reported it to the management.
Recently, I complained in writing to the Director of Community Life (everyone here is a “Director”), who told me, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will share with the social service team and [the head of maintenance] to come up with a plan to speak with her.” Of course, as is typical, absolutely nothing has been done. This is how they operate; they do nothing and wait for problems to resolve themselves.
Another issue is that people are allowed to remain here far longer than they should be. There are many elderly people in advanced stages of mental and physical deterioration who belong in nursing facilities, or at the very least, assisted care facilities. I tried to discuss this with the Director of the facility last summer, when she had been here for about a year. She told me, “This is Independent Living. Independent Living means that people are allowed to make whatever decisions they wish about their own care, whether or not they are decisions with which you or I would agree.”
I told her, “That is NOT what Independent Living means. In an Independent Living facility, people are supposed to remain only as long as they can do so with relative independence. They can have help, of course, but when they require care all day every day, they’re supposed to be moved on to assisted living facilities, and when they require around-the-clock care, they’re supposed to be in nursing facilities. You are selectively interpreting the principles underlying the Independent Living model in order to rationalize your fear of confrontation.” Of course, she was having none of it. She smiled condescendingly, shook her head and said, “No, that’s what Independent Living means… .” She has absolutely no idea of what she’s talking about or what she’s doing.
Last year, I found a woman with advanced Alzheimer’s sitting in a chair on my floor in a state of confusion. She was convinced the building management had stolen her furniture and was searching for her daughter. I had to walk her back to her apartment on another floor. I got on the phone with the daughter, who told me, “They [the Social Services department] are supposed to be monitoring her.” I told her if she was waiting for the social workers here to do their jobs, she’d be waiting for a long time. She replied that she now understood as much, and would have her mother’s caretakers come in for longer hours, but the woman clearly needed to be in an Alzheimer’s facility. I told the management about it, and of course, again, they did nothing.
Apparently, doing nothing is the default state in the social services industry these days.
Another
serious issue involves the quality of home care the elderly residents
are receiving. There is an organization called HomeWorks that is somehow
affiliated with Hebrew SeniorLife. They have an office here in the
building, and for years, they’ve hired out most of the residents’
caretakers. However, increasingly over the past couple of years,
residents’ families have been hiring unskilled, untrained women, mainly
from Haiti, to serve as caretakers because they can hire them for far
less than they can hire professionals. These women are essentially
babysitters, but the families don’t appear to care as long as they’re
cheaper.
The problem is that these women have no idea of how to behave professionally, and don’t care to learn. They make a tremendous amount of noise by slamming doors, having frequent, loud conversations in the halls, talking on their cell phones, etc. Occasionally they’ll bring their children to work with them, and they’ll run up and down the halls out of boredom. When you ask them to try to keep the noise down, they resent it terribly; they glare at you and say nothing. This disturbs a lot of people and complaints have been lodged, but - need I say it again? - the management looks the other way and refuses to intervene.
Until recently, there was a 104 year-old woman in the apartment next to me. She was bedridden and wheelchair-bound, and barely aware of what was going on around her. She should have been placed in a nursing facility years ago, but for some reason, her daughter was reluctant to do so. About two years ago, the daughter hired a number of these unskilled women, and they came and went in shifts around the clock. There were never fewer than two, and frequently there were three of them in the apartment at any time. I could hear them talking and laughing whenever I walked by; it was like a party for them. They came and went at all hours, slamming the door, making noise in the hall. I complained repeatedly and next-to-nothing was done. On two occasions, after I'd complained profusely, someone from the management reluctantly had a quiet word with one of them, but nothing changed and I was told, “We can’t do any more because these women don’t work for us”, which is nonsense, because as I mentioned in an earlier post, they not only have the legal right to intervene under the terms of the contract each resident is required to sign, they are legally obligated to do so. I’ve tried to explain this to them on numerous occasions, but they simply don’t want to hear it.
A few weeks ago, the head of the Social Services Department (who does absolutely nothing here as far as I’ve been able to determine) asked me, “Have you noticed a difference now that E. [the 104 year-old woman] is gone?” I said, “E. is gone?” She said, “Oh, she didn’t die! They placed her in a nursing home.”
Now, it was a stupid question for her to ask me in the first place, because she was acknowledging implicitly that they had done nothing about the situation in over a year of my complaining; however, I merely said, “Well no, I haven’t noticed a difference, because in addition to all of the other noise issues with which I’m dealing, the woman in that apartment [I pointed to a unit diagonally across the hall] has a similar situation with caretakers going on.”
She replied, “A. has around-the-clock care? I didn’t know that!” Of course she didn’t; it’s only her job to know. Letting that one go as well, I asked her, “Where did they put E.?” She then froze momentarily. It was now a privacy issue; she didn’t know whether or not she should tell me, so she merely smiled and said, “Someplace nice!” I said, “Good, I’m glad it’s ‘someplace nice’. It should have been done two to three years ago”, and as I turned to walk away, she said, “Well, if the family can afford around-the-clock care, we can’t… .” I just kept walking.
This is their knee-jerk response to every problem, great or trivial: “We can’t.” It’s nonsense, of course, because again, they have the legal right and obligation to act, but they resist doing so at every turn. The half-dozen women who pretend to run this facility do no work; all they ever do is have meetings. Whenever you go to look for one of them, she’s in a meeting, but nothing ever seems to result from them. The levels of apathy and incompetence here are unparalleled; I’ve never seen anything like them.
These people are lucky to have jobs, but even so, they simply refuse to do them.
The problem is that these women have no idea of how to behave professionally, and don’t care to learn. They make a tremendous amount of noise by slamming doors, having frequent, loud conversations in the halls, talking on their cell phones, etc. Occasionally they’ll bring their children to work with them, and they’ll run up and down the halls out of boredom. When you ask them to try to keep the noise down, they resent it terribly; they glare at you and say nothing. This disturbs a lot of people and complaints have been lodged, but - need I say it again? - the management looks the other way and refuses to intervene.
Until recently, there was a 104 year-old woman in the apartment next to me. She was bedridden and wheelchair-bound, and barely aware of what was going on around her. She should have been placed in a nursing facility years ago, but for some reason, her daughter was reluctant to do so. About two years ago, the daughter hired a number of these unskilled women, and they came and went in shifts around the clock. There were never fewer than two, and frequently there were three of them in the apartment at any time. I could hear them talking and laughing whenever I walked by; it was like a party for them. They came and went at all hours, slamming the door, making noise in the hall. I complained repeatedly and next-to-nothing was done. On two occasions, after I'd complained profusely, someone from the management reluctantly had a quiet word with one of them, but nothing changed and I was told, “We can’t do any more because these women don’t work for us”, which is nonsense, because as I mentioned in an earlier post, they not only have the legal right to intervene under the terms of the contract each resident is required to sign, they are legally obligated to do so. I’ve tried to explain this to them on numerous occasions, but they simply don’t want to hear it.
A few weeks ago, the head of the Social Services Department (who does absolutely nothing here as far as I’ve been able to determine) asked me, “Have you noticed a difference now that E. [the 104 year-old woman] is gone?” I said, “E. is gone?” She said, “Oh, she didn’t die! They placed her in a nursing home.”
Now, it was a stupid question for her to ask me in the first place, because she was acknowledging implicitly that they had done nothing about the situation in over a year of my complaining; however, I merely said, “Well no, I haven’t noticed a difference, because in addition to all of the other noise issues with which I’m dealing, the woman in that apartment [I pointed to a unit diagonally across the hall] has a similar situation with caretakers going on.”
She replied, “A. has around-the-clock care? I didn’t know that!” Of course she didn’t; it’s only her job to know. Letting that one go as well, I asked her, “Where did they put E.?” She then froze momentarily. It was now a privacy issue; she didn’t know whether or not she should tell me, so she merely smiled and said, “Someplace nice!” I said, “Good, I’m glad it’s ‘someplace nice’. It should have been done two to three years ago”, and as I turned to walk away, she said, “Well, if the family can afford around-the-clock care, we can’t… .” I just kept walking.
This is their knee-jerk response to every problem, great or trivial: “We can’t.” It’s nonsense, of course, because again, they have the legal right and obligation to act, but they resist doing so at every turn. The half-dozen women who pretend to run this facility do no work; all they ever do is have meetings. Whenever you go to look for one of them, she’s in a meeting, but nothing ever seems to result from them. The levels of apathy and incompetence here are unparalleled; I’ve never seen anything like them.
These people are lucky to have jobs, but even so, they simply refuse to do them.
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