What she witnessed; what she experienced at the shelterDiana Dennis was a resident of Community Women's Shelter for approximately 7 months in 2005. Other residents and a few of the staff members (only the ones with compassion) confided in her and she personally observed and noted various civil rights violations against the women who were sheltered there.
Diana Dennis reported her observations to Brian Davis, Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless who encouraged her to write
commentaries about the conditions at the shelter for
NEOCH's street newspaper
"The Homeless Grapevine".
A Fly on the Wall, a four-part series of published
commentary writings by Diana Dennis was about many of her own and other residents' experiences at the shelter.
In writing about her own personal experiences, Diana wrote in the third person for fear of retaliation, something many of the women at the shelter also feared. Often, she did not write about things that only she had witnessed. Some of what staff members told her were not published either - to protect them as well.
Only the first part of
the A Fly on the Wall series is posted online in
"The Homeless Grapevine" archives. The rest of the series was removed from the archives as part of an agreement in negotiating corrective resolutions between NEOCH and the shelter provider.
One of my duties as a volunteer at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, was to archive past issues of "The Homeless Grapevine". Because of having archived many of the past issues, I found a copy of Diana Dennis' draft of the fourth installment of the
A Fly on the Wall series.
Due to the agreement between NEOCH and the shelter provider, I have taken the liberty to omit the name of the Executive Director of the agency that ran Community Women's Shelter.
To read Part One of the
A Fly on the Wall series click
here.
The following is the rough draft from Part Four of
A Fly on the Wall. Diana's personal experiences are in bold italic.
A Fly on the Wall - Final in a series of four commentaries by Diana Dennis. Written December 2005.Blustery weather with frigid temperatures and wind chill factors of minus 1 degree have beset the City of Cleveland. Nonetheless, the women and children who reside at Community Women's Shelter on Payne Avenue go unprotected from the brutal cold.Supper is served between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday with weekend serving time beginning at 6 p.m. After dinner is served, residents volunteer to clean up after the meal by stacking chairs, wiping down the tables and mopping the floors. The sooner these tasks of cleaning are accomplished, the sooner the residents can re-enter the Community Room dining area to wait for the rooms to be opened at 7 p.m.Because of the size of the facility, the residents (women and sometimes children) have no other place to stand and wait other than a narrow hallway leading back past the bathroom in Building #1, the small entrance foyer or the outside of the building. Not all residents can fit in the small contained areas and many have to stand outside in the elements-whether it be in rain, hail, thunderstorms with lightning or a blizzard with deadly cold temperature.Community Women's Shelter is NOT a safe haven for children and if a parent willfully exposed a child to the elements, the parent would likely be charged with child endangerment. In this case, the shelter is negligent by standing firm on its policy of not permitting residents to go to their rooms early as protection for the inclement weather. Common sense or a kind heart doesn't prevail over policy.Many of the residents (myself included) now suffer from bronchitis and use inhalers to aid in breathing. In speaking with residents who have since left CWS and presently have found housing, the symptoms of respiratory distress left within several days of being away fromthe shelter. Most of us did not have breathing problems prior to entering the shelter.Most of the time, the temperatures in the dormitory areas are inconsistant with the weather conditions outside. Air conditioning runs when the outside temperature drops into the 40s and the heat runs when the temperature exceeds 70 degrees.Many women in Building #2 (above Care Alliance) suffer from high blood pressure, respiratory conditions such as asthma and heart conditions. Three rooms in this building lack windows and these women suffer as a result of lack of means to properly ventilate their rooms when the thermostat reading is 83 degrees and the furnace is running. Some have been sent to the ER by ambulance or hospitalized as a result.Residents do not have enough blankets to keep warm.Linen (two wash cloths, two towels, two blankets, two sheets and one pillow case are assigned to each resident once a week during linen exchange. The blankets are very thin (summer blankets) and offer very little warmth when the temperature in the dorms falls below 60 degrees, which is often the case.Policy once again dictates. No personal blankets. Although some women do have their own personal blankets (many of them learned to crochet while at the shelter), some of the women (myself included) had their personal belongings thrown out during a sweep by staff in November.Many residents returned to their rooms at 7 p.m. only to find clothing, personal bed linen and even important documents gone from their sleeping quarters and thrown into the dumpster. Some residents filed police reports of theft against the shelter. Others tried retrieving their belongings from the dumpster only to be threatened with arrest. A group of women filed grievances and met with the Client Rights Officer, all to no avail.One woman. who has since left the shelter, was able to get her important documents retrieved by the second-shift program director only to later be threatened by the same manager for bragging to others that she got her paperwork back. The shelter resident was told by the program manager that, because she (supposedly) bragged, she (the manager) would be watching her closely and she (the resident) better not slip up or she would be put out of the shelter.Various threats of arrests continue at CWS; two instances involved residents in Building #2.One resident in Building #2 was falsely accused of stealing another resident's socks and was threatened with arrest. She later was apologized to by staff which offered her little solace form the embarrassment and emotional trauma she was put through.Another woman was having breathing problems due to the excessive temperature from the heat. The thermostat reading was 83 degrees. Because her bunk was beside the baseboard heater causing the bunk to act as a conductor, making the temperature seem higher, she requested to go outside for fresh air.The male coordinator, working the night shift came out of the main building (#1), ordering her into the Community Room rather than allowing her to return to her room. He did not believe her explanation that she had permission to be outside due to the heat and its affect on her blood pressure.While trying to explain to the night security officer why she was outside and that now she needed to go to the ER, the security officer accused her of lying and ordered her into the Community Room. An ambulance was called for the resident and hospital records prove that she was put in further distress from the anxiety of this incident-from which she received NO APOLOGY.The three paragraphs above are about Diana Dennis' personal experience.
So who was Diana Dennis?
I was Diana Dennis and I will go into complete detail about my experience at Community Women's Shelter in a later post.
