Council Member Aviles requests packet on resident rights and language access

Yeah, and I guess I'd be interested certainly to see what the kind of assessment is, certainly across and the communication of the policy to staff and to subcontractors as well.

And I guess I just would love to underscore the importance of, I think you mentioned earlier that you don't track the, I guess, language accessibility of providers, although...

I would imagine that they understand the population that they are requesting to service.

However, I have seen a good number of providers who have no language competency at all.

And so would love to see a more digging deep of a requirement rather than a suggestion or an expectation that they may follow it with no way of being able to hold account.

Understood.

And we are able to track their use of the language line, but I understand the concern is more about having real people on site that can speak in the language of the client that's in front of them.

Great.

Thank you.

And in terms of just to go back to how does DHS investigate whistleblower complaints, if you could, for the record?

Thank you for the question.

We'll have to get back to you on that.

Okay.

And in terms of whistleblower protection policies only apply to vendors, employees, and contractors.

And I guess, as I mentioned earlier, shelter residents should be protected against retaliation for filing complaints about the shelter.

How are these rights and protections communicated to shelter residents?

Thanks for the question.

There's a whole series of documents somebody receives when they come into shelter and their rights and responsibilities, the grievance process, the ability to be treated fairly and with respect are all codified in those materials.

It's also part of what happens during routine case management, during the grievance investigation, incidents.

So there are multiple ways that it's communicated.

Yeah, it would be really helpful if the agency could provide to the council offices, let's say we have multiple facilities, a packet that includes

what that process and procedure is, a packet that includes what the good neighbor policy is.

I remember chasing that down for years on end.

And if I may add, just because it is such an important issue of people feeling safe from retaliation when they're making complaints, and we heard from the panel who opened up this session that they felt, at least one person had felt that they had

been retaliated upon or they were concerned about reporting for fear of retaliation.

And I haven't just heard that today.

I do hear that with some frequency.

And it is why, in addition to the ways that we're kind of required to have a complaint process and handle it, that direct communication,

regular communication through technology, text messaging, and so on, can help me and this team understand directly from people what

what's impacting them so that we may take that into account along with other measures.

So that is something that is important to me to build out.

Yeah, no, and I think certainly our council offices will, of course, reach out to you directly, but I think as a proactive measure, it would be...

Really great to be able to offer your council representatives a packet of information that they should readily know, both for staff, for residents, for contractors, because the truth is we will get

all of the above coming to our offices and to help them better navigate the situation.

That would be quite helpful.

Thank you.