HouseKeeping2009
Introduction/Definition/etc
Lots of meanings here, organizational, NoVAPeers.PBWorks, personal, etc...
2009090719 12:30 pm Jerry
Body
Well, what have we here? A foreclosed house? A mess that has been made?
Cleanup on aisle $$$???
Starting from a FrontPage that is over 50k bytes long and takes a long time to
load, system messages while editing say make it shorter, but the history gets longer,
as time goes on, the MH world turns, shit piles up, flies collect on it,
etc...
Anyway, cluttered FrontPage needs some work, trim out 2008 to separate
archived pages, now that the year is over half over, summer time heat means
stay inside, avoid thunderstorms, heat stroke, sick of being in own filth, etc.
All this bile builds up without writing / journalling about it, but why do others
have to read it? You don't [so skip to another page or something],
but If I Don't Write It Out I Don't Know How I Feel About Stuff...
[Thinking while writing: what a concept! Whining stream of consciousness?
Unfortunate Reality...]
Back in the days/months/year of day treatment, they said something like research showed
that people who journal get better than those who don't. Maybe they meant
people who write in a private diary and try to hide it from their relatives,
friends, roommates, therapists, support groups, lawyers, oscifers, etc...???
Funding stuff is a drag... Spend time developing Ideas into something written
that someone else might be able to understand, some seem to like it,
have it stolen or something. More ABUSE from 'Higher Authority' who does
not understand that consumer driven, is the key. We decide, not providers/
administrators. But who is WE? Is it the superstars, people paid to talk for us,
or the LittlePeople? Garden Variety consumers, seasoned advocates, and PITA
that have been doing it, or outside experts profiting off our pain following
MichaelKennedy, VATech shootings, etc? Let's create a blue collar panel,
oops, blue ribbon? Nope, more blue collar. We sweat it out to get to meetings,
now in dangerous heat, sometimes successful in getting there, sometimes not.
Maybe that is The Southern Way, that I've not fully appreciated.
That Southern Charm of politeness where someone says one thing polite
and nice and does something else behind your back?
Maybe in the seasonal [funding cycle] and politcal heat,
one is supposed to smile and be nice,
and then completely ignore the nastiness of peope who should be fired for
lack of respect? No respect earned here. No consumer input in the position,
Everything about us without us. Providers are paid to know best, don't mind
the bill that kills us afterwards even if the care/ or lack there of doesn't...
Why such vile words? Business as usual hasn't changed enough around
these parts. The funding was for transformation, but they kept doing the same
stuff, more consumers die, not providers (Beeman being one exception?)
most are not heard from much anymore, and hoping they are doing ok,
but yet providers make progress on retirement, house mortgages, car
payments, years in service, stealing funding ideas and consumer hope,
demeaning c/s/x, advocates and leaders...
Playing favorites? We only fund people we like, not those that provide
new needed ideas, we just use and abuse them...
I was quiet during the funding cycle, but it takes it's toll...
Would you spend your [limited] time developing the next big
c/s/x thing if you knew that people/ administrators/ 'higher auhorities'
don't give a shit about you, are publicly rude ('RRWG is in Transition',
talk to us [all knowing, paid professionals/ theives directly,
a total mind fuck of the efforts of our c/s/x advocates,
more of the same)...
Pull down a page announcing a public funding opportunity.
Congress has an official record where you have to put public
notices. But FFX and other jursdictions keep it in the family,
incestuous style. Can't let it out about money available for
consumers, that way we can't pay ourselves. But how can you
steal ideas if you don't cast a wide net? <blatent sarcasm>
And then people want help creating silos of consumer orgs?
Didn't you hear that you need to provide transportation?
Building bottom up and organizing locally is good, but
not to the exclusion of all else. Even FFX county, the
one people are stating is ahead (though behind / backasswords
in so many other ways) in Recovery stuff/ organization(s),
started it's efforts in Drop In Center development by
researching what others had done. We went to learn from
other orgs (see OOOBaltimoreAnnualMeetingRegionalForecasting,
CPSNJ.org, and many other research models. best consumer
practices, promising evolutions/ developments/ etc) and
ended up writing written reports / deliverables to get paid
from start up funds (NTE $30k non competitive funding limits)
off of existing provider orgs (PRS, etc), mostly with alumni
and ohters who had been through the traditional system,
needed some career path after, and were also giving back,
but not exploitively, (hard to think that some were not used though.
looking back on all those that we started with who are no longer
with us, literally dead, or just sick of the interpersonal fighting, etc)...
So when I write out the laundry list of ideas, my favorites,
not pet projects (though executives seem to have more resources,
than their subordinates / or should I say insubordinates, c/s/x
locally are such a back stabbing lot), what exec is not the highest
paid, benefitted of the organization, while consumers are expected
to volunteer hundreds to thousands of hours for the good of others,
and then hear there is excess money not spent!! To think providers
have been hording our c/s/x money. They claim to be 'responsible'
but they weren't even there when we started some of this.
Only one CSBExec was attending meetings, active in consumer
meetings, and eventually listed in the proposal to the state...
And CSBs were the bank. That was the analogy we used. They
hold the money, we say how to spend it. That got mindf***ed into
it's our money, f* You, it's ours. We know better than the people
who went to get the money in the first place???
who did countless meetings, blood sweat and tears
fighting some of it out, working on how it should be done,
then that wasn't what providers wanted? we are doing stuff
'on spec'? another oppressive practice that needs to change...
Most c/s/x are not proposal writers. Most probably would not want
to be... When things went into a writing proposal mode, I made parts
of this site available, as it's a writing, revision, group tool, that might
be good at that. It started with RRWG, though has grown apart,
so far apart after all the bad feelings of being used, abused,
exploited, disrespected, that it will probably never merge back
to the main 'branch/ trunk' (tech terms analogies of a tree structure,
growing apart, splitting, branching, etc)...
What CSBExecs don't seem to want to hear, is that we need
a representative government with c/s/x being like House of Representatives,
and CSBExecs/ RMG/RPO being like Senate, or some similar analogy.
Taxation without representation, is like sending our consumer/ i.e. customers
out to the military front to be cannon fodder...
How blatant and unPC do I have to be to get it through the Provider
attitude that they know everything??? Unless you have been abused
by a system that doesn't care, are diagnosed and treated or formerly
treated, how would you know, how would you qualify to make decisions
that are intended [and funded] to be consumer driven? You can't. Simply put,
you think you know best for others, but really don't. Out of touch,
been in offices and meetings and a process that degrades people,
the customers of the system you are [paid to be] in charge of/ responsible for...
You can't be responsible for others in the traditional way, if recovery
makes it consumer driven. Top down doesn't work well, especially
with the traumas we have experienced, and Providers are adding to
the trauma. Pretend to care what c/s/x want and think? But completely
ignore what is being said...
And should I be whining about it publicly? Yes. Thoughout all of this
we joked/ talked about support groups for the RRWG. This is mine.
I don't go to some county therapists, and be in the watershed of the
system I'm trying to change, or at least as little as possible, it's hard
to not be part of the community where you reside. No matter
where you go, there you are...
So several ideas have been put out there, futures and visions
for how we can go forward, if people are interested. If they are
not, your loss.
And it disrespects the people who have died along the way,
trying to make some of these changes. Starting with the
Clearinghouse published information on starting drop in centers,
dedicated to the leader(s) who died, and then they wrote
the booklet/ manual on how to start them up FOR OTHERS, I must have
known it was difficult, making social change, the buzz word
is now community organizing. But I didn't think it would cost me
friends David and Patrick and others...
Dyssing (dissing?) it [the history] is antithetical...
Conclusion
Summary of experience or similar:
Have been thinking on the stuff piling up since funding event(s),
over the time progression of how RRWG evolves or dissolves...
I try to write out the issues and how I see it, so that others might
understand the rationale for some of what I've been doing,
and how I do it, since meetings are so dominated by a few,
that my and other voices don't get heard, are disrepected in
minutes and some internal emails, we have forgotten the ultimate
customer and 'higher authority' is the public, those unserved,
underserved, and taxpayers who contribute to what
we have been trying to do... Some for decades, most
for a lot shorter time than that. New people need to see
the differences in perspectives between providers, non pofits
(usually stuck in the middle) and c/s/x. Two (3??) sides of the same
coin? What does that mean when you don't have any?
Or it costs you to participate while others are paid to be there?
Great process for those that got some, what about those
that didn't? Their dreams, wishes, wants/ needs don't matter?
Or, spun positively, make micro grants to develop ideas further in to reality?
Like we didn't now over 3 years go in forming the OOOFC, then RRWG,
which hasn't evolved into what I'd hope, but isn't the dinasaur
some want to make it out to be, as they go to greener pastures,
out further and in closer parts of the region, than the majority owners/ stakeholder,
fighting it out, sometimes below the belt, out of bounds,
but usually for a purpose beyond just hurting people,
sometimes intentionally and maliciously, out of pain,
internal pain, but people in support groups are used
to that, though don't like it, and sometimes don't tolerate
it...
Real World MH anyone? Dupont Circle [DC] gets a $5.6 million
dollar Hollywood like MTV show, the first reality program,
but seems like 16& Pregnant is more reality, than
the other... That is a 6 month term or so, what about permanent
subsidized peer run housing in NoVA?
Not a priority. Not your's. You can't. We don't like you...
[How can not funding someone's dreams and visions
not be interpreted that way???]
Any questions?
Discussion
A place for feedback on the page presented
Page History
20090720 Jerry
- reparagraphing long lines
- add title link instead of pagetitlehere or similar.
20090719 Jerry
- Jerry created this page to describe the current 'State of the Onion' from his view...
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