Housing - Rules and Actions That Can Destroy Good Neighbourliness
Sunday, February 27, 2011
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The joy of being poor - you have to live in ODSP and social housing with stupid rules - because, attitudes and a wheelchair prevent you from working.
I'll start out by saying I miss living with someone because it is too much work to do everything alone; even more so when you use a wheelchair, can't reach your cupboards, washing machine and drier, among other things, and the property owners started to create and lay down strict and oppressive rules in an effort to keep the peace. Sadly the rules had the counter-effect; they ultimately killed a atmosphere of neighbourliness.
I'll quote one of the rules below to show you what I mean. But before I do, I will point out that in the good old days, before the management staff changed, we had group activities to do in the common rooms downstairs every day of the week. We had Bingo on Monday, Coffee, Tea and a social hour in Tuesday, Euchre and cards on Wednesday, Shuffle-board and Crokinole on Thursday, Movie night on Friday and about once a month, fun, friendly pot lucks, sometimes with outside entertainment being brought in. What's even more nasty is this building is a mix of full paying tenants and low income tenants so a wall has been created between us.
They have formed a Christian Fellowship Group on Sunday's, a potluck for the group on Wednesday's, and an awkward (for non-fellowship members) movie night on Fridays. All tenants are invited to come, but all the coordination and planning is done by a select few. They run the activities and limit how much others can do as a volunteer, especially if they're disabled. The surface skills only are seen, we're deemed to be unable, and that means they get to run the show. Don't get me wrong. I am a strong and commited Christian. I just don't agree to the participatory limits that are being imposed by this group.
The exercise equipment was put into storage and the tenants have become expert complainers.
I'll put the rules below; the ones that first started to kill neighbourliness. Then I'll post an initiative I tried to get started last summer to restore the atmosphere of friendliness and neighbourliness. Finally, I will include a scanned copy of the Christian Fellowship poster that I took down from the elevator today, after I saw it was once again damaged. I did not damage it, but I gather it means the tempers are starting to boil again and that's what led to the poster being wrecked.
I would love to know how to reverse the nastiness, but without the staff of Town Homes showing strong management skills, there is very little I can do.
If anyone else has experienced this type of mess and knows how to get the mess resolved, please share some tips. I still can't believe that my gesture to recreate a more positive atmosphere was met with so much nastiness from others in the building, and even less support from housing management.
I kept them in the loop all the way by email and I fully had their support. I even have the email saved to prove it. However, in a meeting situation where the divide was clearly evident, the staff chose to back down and let me face the nastiness and trashing by myself. A group, who had taken a petition out against me forming a second committee to oppose what I gather, they perceived would be formalized competition that was sanctioned by the office.
In the meeting, when it became clear that I was not going to be able to proceed with my plans, management suggested I could either join their group or lead my own activities. To lead my own activities, I was to sign out a room on a sheet of paper that was to be posted on the bulletin board in the laundry room. The thing is, I use a wheelchair so there was no way I could reach the piece of paper. I asked if it could be moved elsewhere and was clearly told no. I could knock on the door of the person running the other committee, ask her to follow me downstairs and hand me the sign, let me sign it, and then take it from there.
Forget it. Why should I be forced to depend on others to do a simple task like signing my name so I can use one of the common rooms for an activity?
It's time to share the proof - the factual stuff that will show there are problems.
First of all, here is the directive from THK (Town Homes Kingston) Property Management in May 2010. It was printed in their newsletter.
The next one is a poster I put up in the elevator to attract people to form another committee for those who weren't comfortable with the Christian Fellowship Group. The intention was NEVER to replace the other group. It was to add a social committee, where everyone could have a voice in the planning and share their input and ideas. Here is the invitational poster:
Date: Sept. 9, 2010
Time: 2:00 pm
Location: Tommy Boyd Rm.
Agenda: To form a committee and elect an executive.
Long-Term Goal: To create a harmonious tenant community through community
- Activities
- Movies
- Community Outings
- Skills Sharing
- PLUS… (new ideas welcome)
If interested, please sign list on bulletin board (so we can gauge numbers and be prepared)
Planners for this meeting: Louise, Miles, Shirley, Marion, Roger.
Please join us and share your complaints (instead of slashing the signs).
APPROVED BY KELLY POWELL (staff at Town Homes Kingston) – and will be attended by her.
However, the signs were slashed daily. I kept reprinting and posting them until another neighbour stopped me and told me she has taken out a petition against me. I was shocked. The problems, she said, was I had called it an "inaugural meeting" and a "Tenants Association". I later found out that if it was called a formal Tenants Association, I would be expected to follow a strict set of rules, have a budget, and report regularly to housing. I had no interest in doing all that so I cancelled the meeting.
Little did I know the 'Opposition' would take over and make plans to carry on the meeting on the date and time that I planned. The staff of Town Homes were invited to attend and then someone else insisted I had to show up to explain myself. I had no time to gather up my proposed team so I bravely went downstairs to the meeting knowing full well I would have to face the bullies alone.
By the time the meeting was all over, the staff from Town Homes Kingston, who had been kept fully in the loop the whole time about my plans by me, backed down, didn't say a word, and watched the group, who had taken out the petition out against me, accuse me of criticizing their well functioning group and, in effect, create a social divide of their harmonious group.
What was even worse was that someone in the room was wearing too much perfume, it triggered an asthma attack, I lost my voice, and in order to breathe, I had to move out to the hall and sit in the doorway. I asked Kelly, the office staff, to read my email (which I had printed so I could hand it to her to let her read it) , and she refused saying I had to speak for myself. I had no voice because of the asthma. The one wearing the perfume had caught on to my allergy, and decided to keep me out of the room, it was a good idea to keep reappying it.
In frustration, I finally lost it and burst into tears. That's when the property manager, the one above the one I had been corresponding with by email, loudly proclaimed, in front of the other tenants, that she was worried about my state of mental health. Ever since then, I have been treated rather nasty so now, I just keep to myself and do my best to avoid the neighbours.
All this sounds bleak, but in reality, I keep to myself and am fine. The apartment building is clean, bright, and for the most part, secure. It just blows my mind that housing can watch this nastiness go on, lose their spine and refuse to speak up or admit that they were encouraging me to form a more positive committee, and then sit idly by and watch my good name be smeared.
Anyway, I will keep sharing these stories in hopes that one day we can find out how widespread these problems are, and then collectively lobby the government to fix it. If I wasn't disabled I know I would be working full time and could avoid all these annoyances and attitudes that come from being treated as a less-than just because we're poor.
It's not right, but we have to stay strong, support each other, and soldier on. I don't mind being the mouthpiece so we can expose this stuff and hopefully stop it. I care to much to stay silent and watch it get worse.
Finally, here is the defaced poster for today's Christian Fellowship Meeting.
Please read my other Blogs:
Transit: http://wheelchairdemon-transit.blogspot.com
Health: http://wheelchairdemon-health.blogspot.com
I'll start out by saying I miss living with someone because it is too much work to do everything alone; even more so when you use a wheelchair, can't reach your cupboards, washing machine and drier, among other things, and the property owners started to create and lay down strict and oppressive rules in an effort to keep the peace. Sadly the rules had the counter-effect; they ultimately killed a atmosphere of neighbourliness.
I'll quote one of the rules below to show you what I mean. But before I do, I will point out that in the good old days, before the management staff changed, we had group activities to do in the common rooms downstairs every day of the week. We had Bingo on Monday, Coffee, Tea and a social hour in Tuesday, Euchre and cards on Wednesday, Shuffle-board and Crokinole on Thursday, Movie night on Friday and about once a month, fun, friendly pot lucks, sometimes with outside entertainment being brought in. What's even more nasty is this building is a mix of full paying tenants and low income tenants so a wall has been created between us.
They have formed a Christian Fellowship Group on Sunday's, a potluck for the group on Wednesday's, and an awkward (for non-fellowship members) movie night on Fridays. All tenants are invited to come, but all the coordination and planning is done by a select few. They run the activities and limit how much others can do as a volunteer, especially if they're disabled. The surface skills only are seen, we're deemed to be unable, and that means they get to run the show. Don't get me wrong. I am a strong and commited Christian. I just don't agree to the participatory limits that are being imposed by this group.
The exercise equipment was put into storage and the tenants have become expert complainers.
I'll put the rules below; the ones that first started to kill neighbourliness. Then I'll post an initiative I tried to get started last summer to restore the atmosphere of friendliness and neighbourliness. Finally, I will include a scanned copy of the Christian Fellowship poster that I took down from the elevator today, after I saw it was once again damaged. I did not damage it, but I gather it means the tempers are starting to boil again and that's what led to the poster being wrecked.
I would love to know how to reverse the nastiness, but without the staff of Town Homes showing strong management skills, there is very little I can do.
If anyone else has experienced this type of mess and knows how to get the mess resolved, please share some tips. I still can't believe that my gesture to recreate a more positive atmosphere was met with so much nastiness from others in the building, and even less support from housing management.
I kept them in the loop all the way by email and I fully had their support. I even have the email saved to prove it. However, in a meeting situation where the divide was clearly evident, the staff chose to back down and let me face the nastiness and trashing by myself. A group, who had taken a petition out against me forming a second committee to oppose what I gather, they perceived would be formalized competition that was sanctioned by the office.
In the meeting, when it became clear that I was not going to be able to proceed with my plans, management suggested I could either join their group or lead my own activities. To lead my own activities, I was to sign out a room on a sheet of paper that was to be posted on the bulletin board in the laundry room. The thing is, I use a wheelchair so there was no way I could reach the piece of paper. I asked if it could be moved elsewhere and was clearly told no. I could knock on the door of the person running the other committee, ask her to follow me downstairs and hand me the sign, let me sign it, and then take it from there.
Forget it. Why should I be forced to depend on others to do a simple task like signing my name so I can use one of the common rooms for an activity?
It's time to share the proof - the factual stuff that will show there are problems.
First of all, here is the directive from THK (Town Homes Kingston) Property Management in May 2010. It was printed in their newsletter.
The front entrance of your building is not to be used as a "sitting place", as this makes Tenants and Visitors uncomfortable and it impedes on the traffic flow of people coming in and out of the building.My comment: Get real. What do they mean, we can't sit outside, talk, and be neighbourly? However as the summer wore on, it became apparent they had the upper hand because someone almost got evicted for ignoring the rules. Rumour has it she was smoking, but I was with her and she was doing nothing of the sort.
We are asking everyone to refrain from sitting outside the front doors unless you are sitting on this bench waiting to be picked up or there is not a congregation of people. No inside chairs to be brought outside and no other chairs to be added for sitting on.
The next one is a poster I put up in the elevator to attract people to form another committee for those who weren't comfortable with the Christian Fellowship Group. The intention was NEVER to replace the other group. It was to add a social committee, where everyone could have a voice in the planning and share their input and ideas. Here is the invitational poster:
** NEW **
TOWER’S TENANT ASSOCIATION
Please join, and give input to, our inaugural meeting
TOWER’S TENANT ASSOCIATION
Please join, and give input to, our inaugural meeting
Date: Sept. 9, 2010
Time: 2:00 pm
Location: Tommy Boyd Rm.
Agenda: To form a committee and elect an executive.
Long-Term Goal: To create a harmonious tenant community through community
- Activities
- Movies
- Community Outings
- Skills Sharing
- PLUS… (new ideas welcome)
If interested, please sign list on bulletin board (so we can gauge numbers and be prepared)
Planners for this meeting: Louise, Miles, Shirley, Marion, Roger.
Please join us and share your complaints (instead of slashing the signs).
APPROVED BY KELLY POWELL (staff at Town Homes Kingston) – and will be attended by her.
However, the signs were slashed daily. I kept reprinting and posting them until another neighbour stopped me and told me she has taken out a petition against me. I was shocked. The problems, she said, was I had called it an "inaugural meeting" and a "Tenants Association". I later found out that if it was called a formal Tenants Association, I would be expected to follow a strict set of rules, have a budget, and report regularly to housing. I had no interest in doing all that so I cancelled the meeting.
Little did I know the 'Opposition' would take over and make plans to carry on the meeting on the date and time that I planned. The staff of Town Homes were invited to attend and then someone else insisted I had to show up to explain myself. I had no time to gather up my proposed team so I bravely went downstairs to the meeting knowing full well I would have to face the bullies alone.
By the time the meeting was all over, the staff from Town Homes Kingston, who had been kept fully in the loop the whole time about my plans by me, backed down, didn't say a word, and watched the group, who had taken out the petition out against me, accuse me of criticizing their well functioning group and, in effect, create a social divide of their harmonious group.
What was even worse was that someone in the room was wearing too much perfume, it triggered an asthma attack, I lost my voice, and in order to breathe, I had to move out to the hall and sit in the doorway. I asked Kelly, the office staff, to read my email (which I had printed so I could hand it to her to let her read it) , and she refused saying I had to speak for myself. I had no voice because of the asthma. The one wearing the perfume had caught on to my allergy, and decided to keep me out of the room, it was a good idea to keep reappying it.
In frustration, I finally lost it and burst into tears. That's when the property manager, the one above the one I had been corresponding with by email, loudly proclaimed, in front of the other tenants, that she was worried about my state of mental health. Ever since then, I have been treated rather nasty so now, I just keep to myself and do my best to avoid the neighbours.
All this sounds bleak, but in reality, I keep to myself and am fine. The apartment building is clean, bright, and for the most part, secure. It just blows my mind that housing can watch this nastiness go on, lose their spine and refuse to speak up or admit that they were encouraging me to form a more positive committee, and then sit idly by and watch my good name be smeared.
Anyway, I will keep sharing these stories in hopes that one day we can find out how widespread these problems are, and then collectively lobby the government to fix it. If I wasn't disabled I know I would be working full time and could avoid all these annoyances and attitudes that come from being treated as a less-than just because we're poor.
It's not right, but we have to stay strong, support each other, and soldier on. I don't mind being the mouthpiece so we can expose this stuff and hopefully stop it. I care to much to stay silent and watch it get worse.
Finally, here is the defaced poster for today's Christian Fellowship Meeting.
Please read my other Blogs:Transit: http://wheelchairdemon-transit.blogspot.com
Health: http://wheelchairdemon-health.blogspot.com
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