pain killer

My understanding is that it is against federal law to give medicine unless you are a medical professional.

Other shelters in this state provide lock boxes for residents to to individually lock their medicine, keep it safe from children, and monitor their own medicine.

This shelter wants everything locked in the office so they can control it. COTS makes some adults take pain killer in front of them in the office (pain killer = Aspirin or Tylenol).

phone calls

I call COTS employees for assistance with my situation and ask that they call me because it is free incoming calls on my mobile phone.

I've left them messages. Julie Lowell has pretended to not receive the messages. She has not returned or acknowledged my calls to her. Her supervisor wants me to call her AT MY EXPENSE!!! I do NOT have money to pay phone bills.

UVM

Why are most shelter staff UVM students?

They haven't a clue about parenting or real, adult life. They may be "well meaning", but they do not know what we are going through.

new family

The new family across the hall is loud every night in the middle of the night.

They smoke in the room; then spray heavy incense to try to cover it up.

There's a no smoking policy in the shelter.

no drinking water for a child

AmeriCorps vista volunteer put my three year old in tears by telling her she couldn’t drink water!

Mother’s day

Leah Sohotra locked in the office on the telephone. She said she was on the phone with her dad. At another time that day, she was sitting on the couch and seemed annoyed that COTS guest walked in asking a question. She said, “I’m on the phone with my sister.”

safety

The COTS Main Street family shelter has safety concerns. Mops are left standing in hallways and have fallen on the backs of very young children.

There is a long, sharp, wire on the floor, attached to the heater in a bathroom on the end of the hallway on the second floor. Staff has been asked many times to remove it as a young child has become tangled in it.

The sink fills quickly with water and does not drain properly. It's disgusting. This makes it hard to wash hands and brush teeth. We've asked staff for three months to fix it and they haven't.

There are open windows on the first and second floors without screens that young children have opened on their own and that they can easily fall out of.