Good Ol’ Girls Network Passes on Shelter Probe

Subsidized by millions in taxpayer largesse, domestic violence coalitions operate in every state in the Union. While most groups have annual budgets in the $1-3 million range, some run much higher. For example the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, with its $26 million budget, seldom feels the need to recycle paper clips.

Who are these coalitions accountable to? In almost every case, they answer to a hand-picked Board of Directors that is composed of the same persons who feather their own nests by making the decisions about who gets the coalition’s grants.

Take the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. Its Board members include representatives from the Family Crisis Center, City Life, ROSE Advocates, Bingham Crisis Center, Family Services Alliance, YWCA of Lewiston-Clarkston, and Valley Crisis Center.

These are same groups that receive much of their funding from the Idaho Coalition.

What’s wrong with that?

Let’s look at the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence that farms out $20 million each year to abuse shelters and other groups around the state.

Now consider the 16 members of the Coalition’s Board of Directors. Fifteen of these women (yes, this is a girls-only club) represent a shelter that receives a large share of its funding from the FCADV. The sixteenth woman is the Lesbian and Bisexual Womyn’s Representative (spelling “women” with a ‘y’ is how they get the “men” out of “women” – get it?).

Maybe this arrangement is not exactly according to Hoyle, but what’s the harm?

Let’s take the example of Another Way, a FCADV-funded shelter in Lake City, Fla.

In previous columns I have documented numerous examples of misconduct and malfeasance at this 35-bed facility: document falsification, misappropriation of the organization’s assets, personal use of the shelter van, sex discrimination, staff harassment, and an epidemic of staff firings.

Last May, half the Board resigned in protest.

These lax management practices have given rise to multiple incidents of drug use and child mistreatment, like a crying 8-year-old boy who was packed into a closed van in the middle of summer until he stopped “throwing a fit.” These illegal activities often go unreported to local authorities.

On May 7, 2007, Another Way manager Wendy Pittman was spotted by police drinking alcohol with a group of teenagers. Pittman was let go. She was replaced by Shanna Travis, whose license had been previously revoked by the Florida Board of Nursing for opiate use.

Then on June 5, 2008, a four-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a nine-year-old female at the shelter. But the incident wasn’t reported to the police until 15 hours later, in direct violation of shelter policy.

The staff member on duty at the time was Gloria Taylor. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Taylor has spent 32 months in prison on convictions of fraud, grand theft, and written threats to kill or injure. (Go to www.dc.state.fl.us/ActiveOffenders , then enter Taylor’s DC number: 285003.)

According to her rap sheet, Taylor goes by a number of aliases, including Donna Bell, Gloria Jean Bell, Patricia S. Rawls, Gloria Holmes, and Regina Denise Williams. This same woman is now working at an abuse shelter, supervising children and presumaby serving as a role model to help women break the cycle of violence.

And there’s more…

Brenda Collins (DC 543466) was convicted on two counts of cocaine possession in 1998, and later spent nine months in jail for aggravated assault with a weapon. She’s on probation until 2009. This past December Another Way named Collins the Employee of the Year. But then she got on the wrong side of management and the former Employee of the Year was summarily let go.

Given all this, why hasn’t the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence launched a probe and published its findings? And why does this rogue operation continue to accept residents to this day?

Get ready for this…

The director of Another Way is Donna Fagan. Turns out, Fagan is also a member of the Executive Committee of the FCADV Board of Directors — actually, she’s the chairperson of that committee. Angie Osterhoudt, another manager at Another Way, also sits on the FCADV Board.

Remember what your mother always taught you: Girls always stick together.

So to all the women and children who were harassed and ill-treated at Another Way, and to all the abused men who were turned away, forget about that investigation. It’s not going to happen. The Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence won’t hear a word of it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 473 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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