Source
r/massachusetts•
Callamy

WHISTLEBLOWING: Veterans Inc in Worcester

General Q

They recently kicked out everyone who was staying there under an Elective Services Grant. Literally put them on the street. A number of staff have quit in protest, and they're hiding behind their reputation of 35 years.

The Elective Services Grant (ESG) is a program through the VA that helps pay for your stay in a shelter if you served in the reserves. The grant usually last a year, and you have to reapply each year. By law, you cannot be thrown out if this grant money isn't available. At least not without another place to go.

The first of the purge included myself and a 71 year old Vietnam combat veteran. The 71 year old also has the early stages of Alzheimer's, and still can't fully understand why he was thrown out. As for myself, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for three weeks because they had actually accused me of stalking someone in order to cover their tracks. They blindsided me at 9pm, and the entire situation made me suicidal. There is absolutely no evidence of the allegation, and my attempts to reach out to the police to give my statement have been ignored. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the CEO is first-name friends of the Worcester county sheriff, and employs the sheriff's daughter. Several of these brothers even had all of their ducks in a row, and were literally just waiting for a housing vacancy to open up. There were at least ten men total who were purged.

And for icing on the cake, they did this days before MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND.

Furthermore, I personally had details in the kitchen (It was one of four details I used to do, including the clothing room). I tried telling them.for months that the walk in freezer was 25 degrees higher than it should have been (25°F instead of 0°F), the walk in cooler was ~20 degrees higher, and I constantly found mold in the cooler. The reach in still has no proper seal, so food constantly spoils there. I even found and sent pictures of items that had expired in 2016(four years expired). Those pictures were sent to HR last August. Nothing happened.

I have witnessed multiple staff members from multiple departments stealing donations. Food, clothing, hygiene supplies, this place is their own personal Walmart. I specifically remember one day a donation of ten one Gallon jugs of milk came in. I personally took in that donation. I put them in a donation cooler, and when I mentioned them to the logistics supervisor, he was excited because he had to stop and get milk on the way home, this saved him the trouble. By the next day, all of those milk jugs were gone. While I didn't see him take them, that's an easy place to put 2 and 2 together when it comes to this.

Then there are the donations themselves. If you ever see a box truck parked out front and they're loading it up with trash bags, those trash bags are full of clothes YOU ALL DONATED. I fought for months to get clothing donations moved between shelters, as many of those are high quality donations, which I thank you all on behalf of me and my brothers. But those clothes are going to a broker who buys by the pound, and they don't ever say where that money goes.

I'm not asking anyone here to take my word for it. You're all encouraged to go there yourself and ask the residents. Ask them about everyone who was kicked out memorial day weekend, and they'll tell you all about it. Ask the staff and watch them struggle for an explanation, if they'll even talk to you at all about it.

And I dare them to sue me. I have witnesses to this purge, current and former staff, willing to swear affidavits.

Posted Jun 26, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC · edited

34539
TheEmpressIsIn•

contact the state attorney general office and your u.s. rep ASAP. McGovern is very engaged and responsive.

https://www.mass.gov/orgs/office-of-attorney-general-maura-healey

https://mcgovern.house.gov

149
ConwayPuder•

Adding to the State Attorney General stuff, you can e-mail them at [email protected]. put "Constiuent Services" in the subject.

You can call their Worcester office during the Mon-Fri workweek at 5087927600.

You could also try a shot with the Dept of Veterans Affairs Inspector General, Office of Investigations. Their web site doesnt give an email or phone number but their address is

Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General Office of Special Reviews (56) 810 Vermont Ave, NW Washington, DC 20420

41
farts-R-liberty•

The AG’s office has people who work specifically on veteran’s affairs and I think they would be very interested in this situation.

26
littlejilly•

Such bullshit. Take it to the press?

40
CallamyOP•

Ive emailed channel 7. I'm going to keep spamming them and call if I have to until I get their attention. I want to expose them.

46
NativeMasshole•

Maybe try posting this to their Facebook/Twitter? The visibility might help you get a faster response from them.

26
steph-was-hereCentral Mass•

a lot of reporters have either open DMs on twitter or their email addresses listed in their bio. might have better luck going directly to a reporter instead of a general line

11
CallamyOP•

Unfortunately I have neither. Reddit is my only real social media anymore, but I've been getting lots of resources from others so tomorrow I'll be preparing emails for all of them.

What's the most messed up is, they had a veterans program at the Independence Hall location in Shrewsbury Ma. At least until someone died of an overdose there. While I was in the hospital I met someone who was on the CSS side when that happened. The veteran was dead for two days before anyone found him

8
Vnecktrev09•

I’ve noticed you haven’t responded to people saying you should contact the state attorney generals office & your state rep. Did you do that yet? That should be your first step as that’s really the only thing that will cause change. If you don’t do it and post more on here and other social media and the problem gets handled I guarantee it will be because someone finally reached out to them. I’m just hoping you did those things first bud.

3
CallamyOP•

Nope. I'm at work, and I don't like messing with my phone with handfuls of paint lol. I'm at lunch now, but I'll be getting back to business once I get home, and tonight/tomorrow I will be replying and preparing emails for each resource that's being suggested. The fires will rise quickly.

7
torpedofahrt•

Just a suggestion, the entire legal system (especially surrounding complaints against departments like the VA and the organizations they pay) is made needlessly complicated, and you can easily fuck up and end up destroying your own case. On Healey's website there are a few resources that are meant specifically for giving legal advice to veterans that want to litigate or make complaints against violations like these. I don't know if you want to go that far or just get higher-ups in the VA/MA government to do it for you, but regardless they should be able to help. (Be careful though, sometimes they'll push you to litigate even when you don't want to, since they only get paid if a judge is involved.)

Your best bet right now is to just call the Attorney General or DAs office and let them handle it, and if nothing happens there you can start looking into direct action. Alternatively you can call the VA and tell them about it, but there's such a mess of bureaucracy there that it'd take them a while to even figure out what you're talking about. Links are below, best of luck holding them accountable.

https://worcesterda.com/contact/

https://www.mass.gov/contact-the-attorney-generals-office

https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/tips/ (I'd trust them before some local news station, they've done stories like this before)

6
Vnecktrev09•

I hear ya. I left a one star review on the business. Shit like that makes my blood boil. Judging by the other reviews I saw your claims don’t seem far fetched. I used to work for a veteran owned staffing agency that was supposed to primarily hire vets. They rarely ever hired vets because the contracts they were on only allowed them to recruit for certain jobs which rarely had vets in the field. They’d win those bids for those contracts because it was a veteran owned company that said they focused on hiring vets then turned around and obviously didn’t. If they were honest about who they we’re gonna hire they likely would have never gotten any of those contracts. The fucking boss was also stingy AF. When I worked there I was in the reserves and he would try to fuck me out of pay when I’d miss a day for drill even though I was a salaried employee.

4
justanutherjohnson•

Pretty sure someone else mentioned it but try the globe. They do a lot of stories like this, it definitely sounds like something they'd dig into.

Also I'm sorry this happened to you. I hope you can work things out.

3
[deleted]•

[removed]

1
ShroomanEvolution•

Keep spamming other news channels as well as YouTube news personalities. Someone is bound to take up your story and run with it.

1
Ostrichesrdicks•

Damn I’m so sorry that happened to you. The VA is notoriously useless and impossible to navigate until you find a POC that actually does their job. It took me almost 11 years to find such a person. The people at the Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center in Gardner, MA are phenomenal and will actually go out of their way to help you. They’re still closed for covid but are starting to randomly come back into the office. Please send me a message if you need any info to contact them and I will get it for you.

24
CallamyOP•

Thank you. I'm trying to reach out to the press as well. I've been making sure my Vietnam Vet friend is taken care of, and efforts are being made to find him a home near his daughter. He told me that in Vietnam they were abmushed at credibility gap, and this is that all over again.

19
143019•

Damn it. My Girl Scout troop and my church both have done donation drives for Veterans Inc.

15
Mobile_Busy•

Talk to the other parents in the troop and go the spiritual leadership of your church.

1
jayeldee46•

https://www.veteransinc.org/about-us/board-of-directors/

This is a list of all of the members of the Board of Directors of the organization. Maybe people are reading this post know someone on this list.

12
Mobile_Busy•

Even if you don't, it doesn't hurt to send a letter.

2
seashoreduck•

Jim and Marjory on WBUR handle stuff like this

8
molly_g_19_10_19•

I just submitted this to Fox 25 & Mike Beaudet at Ch 5

7
Mobile_Busy•

Thank you.

5
Chyaboiiiiiii•

I crossposted this on Twitter. I'm so sorry this has happened to you!

5
CallamyOP•

I don't have Twitter, so this helps a lot! Thank you!

3
Mobile_Busy•

Thank you.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

3
CallamyOP•

I'm trying to solve this using the legal process, but it all begins with giving my statement to the police. I can't give my statement if they won't talk to me. And that organization most definitely is buddies with the police.

4
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
CallamyOP•

Thank you 😊. I'm not done fighting for these guys. In my investigation, I'm also learning this isn't the first time they've done this.

2
PM_me_spare_change•

Hit up T&G if you haven’t yet notified them as wel

2
hogwartswitch508•

This is absolutely awful. Thank you for sharing. I’m sorry you went through this and I hope you’re doing okay. Thank you for working hard to expose this.

2
Ritalin_Rx•

It's pretty normal for services for the homeless to things like this to be fair, cities are aware, police are already aware, journalist are probably aware, sadly they hide it.

With their being a lack of resources or help for people with disabilities such as the elderly, only help is him being on the street. With nowhere else to refer people with chronic disabilities when they deteriorate then there's the risk of neglect from homeless services for not providing care that they aren't trained to provide and don't provide anyway. There's no assisted living, group home, etc that will take him when he doesn't have family to pay. He'll experience the same in any other shelter and they're usually very unsafe, have violence and will do the same after the limit runs out.

Sadly, best thing is if you can't get him into a shelter (where he may be subjected to violence, theft, assault and staff won't be equipt to care for him) would be to get him a tent and see if an outreach worker can go to his location and give food regularly, check up on him and hope he doesn't wander off.

In America if you have a disability, when you're poor or homeless the care involves cycling through jail, the ER and back on the street. You'll find getting him another option for living to be difficult if not non-existent but I wish you luck. It sounds harsh, but it's the way the system is. It shouldn't be designed that way.

Only way for him to get housing is to work a job and save for an assisted living, apartment, etc which may not be possible with the Alzheimers, but you should look for supportive employment for him that pays a living wage.

Maybe a go-fund me where the public gives some money to pay for an assisted living facility for a few months, that isn't provided unless you can pay, may be an option?

I believe you 100% since when you see the behavior such as this, corruption and abuse in a lot of homeless services first hand, in the homeless NPOs and hear all the stories from the others, you start seeing the reality.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
1GoodWoman•

This is important information. Thank you for sharing. Obviously any and all pictures and documents will matter. If you can get some of that together you can at least give the people you contact a starting place. Good luck.

1
sdaasdfsdfff•

Umm. Aren't veterans supposed to be heroes and the greatest people. Why are they complaining and why do they expect to live off donations. You should definitely blow the whistle on the refrigerator temperature and the mold, write to the United Nations and the International Human Rights Court about the milk that came from the sacred cows. Our current and former presidents who haven't served will care a lot especially about the refrigerator temperature. Definitely let our senators know about the milk jugs ASAP.

1
CallamyOP•

There's always one, and I'm glad you're the only one.

1
Pepe_In_My_Step•

They treat us like shit in this state! One day I will have the means to help out any homeless veteran.

0