I worked for a local nonprofit shelter agency here in Edmonton, many of us, know of who they are, and they were awful.
The toxic culture was unbelievable. The turnover was more than once per year, and they abused their employees despite seemingly caring for marginalized and vulnerable people in the community.
During my tenure I was, but not the only one, the subject of intense bullying and hostility from my manager and her assistant. I was even forced to sign a letter that was loaded with legal ramifications for me against my will in their office under threat of my job and participation in the entire housing sector.
When I approached my manager, with a medical note from my doctor to take leave, I was embarrassed in front of my colleagues, and then fired in the stairwell as I left the building in front of all of my coworkers. After that, they made a false call to the police alleging that I had stolen confidential client records when that was obviously there was no proof to substantiate and obviously I hadn’t the police quickly closed the investigation. So in essence, not only did they humiliate me, they illegally fired me, and used public law enforcement resources with malice against me. I appealed to the Board of Directors multiple times to no avail and was met with complete silence.
In an effort to try to regain some of my dignity I sued and they in turn hired one of the most expensive lawyers and unfortunately, my lawyer was a not able to provide me fair advice knowing the power the organization wielded. As a result I ended up accepting a horrible deal which did not even cover the cost of my legal fees to shut up and not speak about it. Well, I’m done with that now I’m outing you George Spady.
You are an awful organization and I hope everyone reads this and I hope everyone sees you for who you are. You need to be out of the industry. BTW, ‘miss CEO’ Loretta you should have been fired at least a decade before I started. Homeward Trust Edmonton, you are complicit in this by creating funding models that propagated this culture of fear among agencies which in-turn distills downward to the housing workers. These agencies eat their own to ‘win’ funding and your lack of overview of how resources were being used in the course of providing housing for our homeless population is continuing to propagate and support this disgusting behaviour.
I remember one time I felt so bad about it that I almost walked into the parking lot and shot myself in the head to prove to them how far they drove me to insanity. I take steps every day to overcome this, but yes, it is still hurting and haunting me. I know I have been the victim of corporate aggression and I still want to die from the humiliation. Added to the humiliation they did this to me directly before Christmas Holidays which cratered my finances, set me back years, and I still have not recovered. I have a wife and three children with disabilities and this is how they treat those who want to genuinely provide care and support to people suffering from mental health, addictions, and homelessness. Good job you created at least one of threes categories with me, how many more? Seriously? How many more people on the sector are being abused like this? I know based on my observation of this agency it is at least 40% of all employees in the sector regardless of the position they hold.
George Spady, if I could criminally charge you and your entire board of directors for negligent harassment and malicious use of public dollars, resources, and law enforcement with malice, I would. It doesn’t matter that our justice system is perpetually 20 years behind labour practices though, in my mind you are criminals. You have scarred me for life and everyday I wake up in fear of going to work and lost total confidence in myself and have not held a job down for more than eight months since.
George Spady and Board of Directors, you should truly be disgusted in yourselves. Dignity and respect? How about you save what little face you have left, shut down and give your funding dollars to a more competent organization, as you are corrupt and useless. You harm yourselves, your employees, and definitely you harm our clients.
Edit:
I shall fix grammar and spelling eventually. This occurred between 2019 and end of 2020.