He is not an employee of the Pine Street Inn. He is an employee of a security guard business.
When I saw that he was doing the check-in, I asked a female staff person who is an employee of the Pine Street Inn to take over his function of searching the bags and wanding people for me. If she were someone who didn't know or didn't care about the history of my being harassed at the Pine Street Inn, I would have had to allow him to scan my front and back with the wand metal detector and to search my bag.
It seems that the Pine Street Inn has done nothing to prevent him from working at the women's side of the shelter; not that there isn't a reason to think that he'll bully anyone of any gender that he thinks he can.
I wish that I could say that I'm surprised that he's at the shelter, but I'm not. The director of the women's side of the Pine Street Inn is a nice person, but many of the people who work for her are not, and I also think that the Pine Street Inn, like most shelters, does not respond to reports of harassment and bullying as much as it should or do as much as it should to stop people from being targets of repetitive abuse.
Since the incidents that happened to me a few weeks ago, I have heard about horrifying incidents that have happened, not involving security guards but which were reported to the same negligent staffpeople who did nothing to stop my being harassed. I was shocked, although it shouldn't have surprised me.
All of this is particularly concerning because the Pine Street Inn is attempting to advocate for me with Bunker Hill Community College while my report to the Office of Civil Rights about the school is pending.
I would not be surprised if staffpeople at the Pine Street Inn who read my blog and are hostile to me used the knowledge of my being suspended from school to say that I was never harassed at the Pine Street Inn and that I am a false accuser who harasses innocent people, as the school used my being homeless to say that I was never harassed at school and that I'm a false accuser who harasses innocent people, as the last two apartments where I have lived used my previous homelessness to say that I'm a false accuser who harasses innocent people and that there were no hidden, illegal cameras in my apartment, that I was crazy and dangerous, and that other people had a reason to be afraid of me.
I was permanently barred from almost every shelter in the Boston area between 2011 and 2013; I was harassed and bullied and then barred, including from the Bristol Lodge, where I know there were hidden, illegal cameras in the shower. If I am barred from the Pine Street Inn, I'll be living on the street, vulnerable to predators around the clock.
I was harassed and stalked by a male employee of the Pine Street Inn for 8 months in 2015. My reports about it were denied until the enabling of his behavior by negligent staff caused him to harass and stalk so many other homeless women that they also reported him and he was finally fired. I spent most of a year being abused by him and by the people who enabled him, who screamed at me when I asked them to tell him to leave me alone. I should not be made vulnerable to another experience like that; I shouldn't be made vulnerable to even the risk of another experience like that. Nobody should.
What the guests were told when security guards were contracted a couple of years ago to do the wanding and bag searches was that the Pine Street Inn would try to have female security guards as often as possible. I have lived at the Pine Street Inn this time since the beginning of June 2017. So far, there have been 3 male security guards working at the women's side of the shelter and only 1 female.
Copyright L. Kochman, July 16, 2017 @ 4:16 p.m.
