Public Advocate Williams questions panel on complaint reporting and grievances

Thank you so much for sharing your testimonies.

I really appreciate it.

I wanted to know, was there a clear line of where you could report?

Any of the complaints too?

And if the complaints weren't addressed at the shelter, were you aware of any place you can go after that?

Yes.

My incident with the mice and the asthma, the second supervisor called the director, and he told me to write up a grievance.

And he wanted it on his desk when he came in the next morning.

I did such.

She put it on his desk.

That supervisor that came before that told me I had to wait until the next morning, when I left six months later, he was still working.

So even though the grievance goes to the honorable man's office and they have 30 to 60 days to respond,

The amount of grievances that they receive, they cannot respond to.

So things go, left go unattended.

And a lot of directors in the shelter, when you do them grievances, it goes right under the table.

I just had something with a grievous issue.

I'm glad you brought it up.

Because as far as I'm concerned, the way grievances are handled is an absolute joke.

Because the fact of the matter is, you're supposed to go to the operations and ask them for a grievance form.

And when you fill it out, you hand it back to them.

When sometimes the grievance is universal.

People who, you know, who have to give it a form and or their cohorts who are RAs.

And so without tooting my own horn, I actually came up with an idea that, that,

a grievance box be placed, so like an algo lockbox, and forms be placed under them, and you can go and pick it up and put grievances and drop in the box, and only direct or the

appropriate person will open it and take out those grievances and address them.

Thank you.

You should toot your horn.

It's okay.

But so you were unaware of anywhere that make grievances that didn't involve the people you may be having a grievance about?

No such...

policy or rules exist in the DHS shelter system in New York.

Thank you.

Also, the private shelters.

Thank you.

Mr.

Williams, oh, I'm sorry, you finished?

Okay.

Mr.

Williams, he said he filed a complaint, right, about his condition, about what happened in the shelter.

Can you just speak into the microphone, please?

Oh, my apologies.

Thank you.

He said that he filed a complaint about his condition, about what was happening to him in the homeless shelter, but he was ignored completely.

They never responded, and they never did any follow-up about his complaint, right?

Thank you.

Okay.