Council Member Aviles questions DHS on resident retaliation protections and subcontractor complaints

And also, I'd love to know how shelter residents are.

Obviously, we know there's an ombudsman, but how they receive that and how they are protected against retaliation, potentially from staff.

I will say I'm concerned that while I understand it theoretically,

that the subcontractors obviously should report back up to their main provider.

But if there is no way, I'd be curious, number one, how many complaints you've received from subcontractors.

Do we have a naughty list?

Are we seeing providers use the same contractors over and over again?

I'd love to hear more about how we're closing that loop because there is a potential for real problems there.

Yeah.

Thank you for the question.

We don't have data on complaints to from subcontractors or about subcontractors specifically carved out in the data, but we can certainly look into that because I think you're raising an important point.

When it comes to retaliation, obviously this is of utmost concern as we're trying to create a safe and welcoming environment.

Where staff and clients both feel that they can be safe.

So if we are to hear about an instance of retaliation, obviously we're going to investigate.

We want to understand what the provider knows, what they've done about this, and who the bad actor is.

And if the findings warrant it, may lead to termination.

So we're looking into every aspect of the provider's handling of the particular issue, as well as is there something underlying this, right?

Was the bad actor permitted by LAX Pro?

to calls to be able to do this.

So we're looking to make sure that supervision is right, that security is right.

It's a whole assessment of what's going on in the shelter and could also roll up at the provider level as they might have multiple shelters and we might want to take a look.

Often the case.

Yeah, and see if it's spread.