Equal Access To Aid

If you have nothing to hold on to, and no one is standing by your side that really should be, how would you feel? I have been standing by an individual with disabilities, in fighting a fight for three years now. It is a fight that has been counterproductive to tax payers and disheartening to ones of low income and disability status. I think that individuals within the low income and disability category are not being treated with equal human rights, or with equal access to opportunities to better living within their communities. There appears to be no projection of respect or dignity to ones of low income and disability in need, which also is troubled by the circumstances of my experience of agencies of human services kicking someone when they are down. It appears the struggles of the individual in need of the petition are of what no one should ever wish them to be ... an attempt to maintain power over the 'powerless'. Opposition and resistance to suppress her and concerned others to silence wtih abuse and retaliation are forefront and very rigid. I have been attempting to help this individual to successfully access eligible services with County organizations in Upstate New York to make her living conditions safe, warm, and healthy, with little to no success.

So now I am coming to you. If we pool together, in effort to make even the smallest change towards people who have unfortunate disabilities, and who cannot live warm, safe, and dry without assistance from Federal, State, and County agencies, our voices can be heard. Not only do I need your voice, this individual desperately needs your voice also - and so do many others living quietly in less than healthy circumstances. I can be certain the individual seeking aid is not the only one facing this sort of situation, as I have been approached by others with similar situations now. Lock-out of services that has been tolerated for this one individual is now being done to others on a slowly growing scale in the County, by report. The funding for these State and County agencies are coming from all our tax dollars. In essence, we are paying for them to mistreat such individuals, upon their personal biases, discretions, and prejudices to do so. Services are not fully being provided to all individuals who apply for them and need them desperately or otherwise. This petition is to demand that an investigation begin to assure there will be no further misguided use of taxpayer funds, or abuse of the rights of disabled and low income individuals.

The purpose of this petition is to initiate investigations into County based agencies funded to assist individuals with disabilities and low income, with equal opportunity. It is to serve as a notice to the politicians of jurisdiction to institute laws to protect the low income and disabled from such mistreatment, abuse, retaliation, and unprofessional conducts involved in the issues. As the Assemblywoman Diedre Scozzafava's representative stated that the Assemblywoman makes laws and does not enforce them, it is presented that the Assemblywoman makes laws to protect vulnerable low income and disabled people in such circumstances within the issues presented to her office. State funding is dominant in the operations of these issues, and therefore the state offices and politicians should be investigating the issues fully. This petition will be forwarded to the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern NY (Lillian Moy, Executive Director; Peter Racette, Deputy Director), The Attorney General, Town of Lawrence Legislator (Thomas Grow), St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators, Chair (Thomas A. Nichols), Senator Ray Meier, Assemblywoman Deidre Scozzafava, Congressman John McHugh, and Governor George Pataki.

Please support the purpose of this petition by signing your name. If you know of important information, such as regulations and laws to assist, please place it, indented, with your name and email address. If you would like to make personal inquiries about this situation, please send an email to [email protected] Please use a valid email address when signing this petition. I plead with you to please help me get resolution to my issues for this individual in need.



History of the situation from the words of the individual involved:

I am a person with disabilities, of which Agoraphobia with Panic Disorder and Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are of heavy impact. Because of these disabilities, home services are necessary when in times of need. I try to live quietly and privately, with no harm to anyone. I only ask for help when in time of need, and that request usually comes when I find I cannot manage my situations without asking for aid. I deteriorate in times of extreme and/or hostile confrontations, which the County agencies and individuals clearly are aware of this fact and such confrontations are being used in my home and in response to my communications.

In brevity, the issues I am within began, unnecessarily, when an agency individual threatened to put me in an institution because I did not act upon her personal wishes of a choice I was free to make for myself, and thereafter affected other agencies to not assist me in my personal endeavors. Services were abruptly closed, under false notations. I filed a complaint, which was not filed properly by the offending agency, and I received swift retaliation and further abuses by this agency, it's funding sources, as well as County agencies parallel and of exposure to it and it's employees. The Administrator of the agency stated, "I answer to no one, just like the President of the United States", and further stated he would not promise retaliation would not occur following the complaint. An employee of the agency came to my home for a home visit, after my struggling to regain services, to which she yelled at me and a guest and became quite verbally abusive. I was told I would never get the services of this agency.

I was treated differently by SPOA (Single Point of Access) when filing a re-application for services, and my application was set aside for over 4 months with no response, and I was told I needed to withdraw my application alleging I would not get services. After two years of struggling with SPOA to regain services, I received case management services, in name only, by an individual involved in the complaint issues. I went without heat for about a month and a half. I was not with option of additional food aid.

My identity was stolen following the filing of complaints, and I was told it was my fault due to making the complaints. I had approached many agencies, countless times, and received little to no responses. No politician would investigate the issues, and often they appeared frustrated that I contacted their offices. The Board of Legislators of my County have remained unresponsive. Simple requests of need have enlarged unnecessarily to become a mountain of displaced issues and hostility forged by the County. The results have come to be a great cost to the taxpayers, as it has costed taxpayers more based upon the State and County fight against assisting me, than it would have cost to assist me properly to begin with.

The services of need were of resources to make my home safe, warm, and healthy. I was to be provided resources to repair my home, and to be able to locate additional food and heat resources if needed. My septic system was against health code, and is within 15 feet from the well. The pump has been on the bottom of the well, which makes the water undrinkable in itself. The County knew about this health code situation for three years. I have had several meetings with County employees within my home. At times resolutions were offered, though they were not fulfilled. Overall, the meetings seem to establish nothing other than board-room behaviors being used in my home, with verbal communications that have been unprofessional. The County Administrator stated in one such meeting that he wants me "out of the system". This is not likely to occur, as I am disabled and with SSI income.

When calling a local crisis line in time of need, I was abruptly told to "do the County a favor". I was told to sell my home and move out of the County. I was told my complaints and issues are being thrown in the garbage upon receipt, and I will not get the resolution I am looking for. The Director of Community Services has, reportedly, told another call-line to refuse my calls, and to direct me to her when I call. This call-line has done so. I cannot feel an ability to call the local crisis line in time of need at this point.

Confidentiality has been violated at several points, which appears to be of no concern to agencies I have reported this to. It clearly appears there is no checks and balances in the system occurring, and agencies are free to behave as they wish, with funding used by them upon their personal discretions.

These issues were approached to the St. Lawrence County Community Services Board Director, and the St. Lawrence County Community Services Mental Health Subcommittee, and AMI of St. Lawrence County (NAMI), with no present offer or assistance to resolve these issues. More so, the County Administrator is denying any further meetings within my home and would like this meeting to be in his office, contrary to past accommodations and modified reasonable accommodation requests. When approaching an AMI individual about my concerns, as well as a separate approach to the same individual by a friend, my friend and I received very negative responses of attack, and no assistance was offered. I was told to write a book to gain my own funds. I have attempted to contact three members of the Board of Legislators, one of whom is the Legislator for the town I live in, and one of whom is Chair. No response has been forthcoming, and it appears my communications to them is further ignored.

A County agency was found to assist with the health code issues, via an outside legal source, and not within communications with the State or County offices. This legal source also wrote to the Director of Community Services Board, due to concern of abuse and retaliation by agencies involved. The agency found was to replace the septic system and attend to the well situation primarily, and any home repairs able to be done with funding was to be done thereafter. A contractor was hired by the agency. However, any and all work had to be done by relentless daily arm-twisting, hostility projected at myself, and other unprofessional communications. Work did not begin until far after the promised start date in the contract. When this became a problem, I was told by the Director of the Community Services Board that contacting the Executive Director of that agency "would not be in your favor". The contract workers would either not show up, or would appear for short hours in the day. I had to ignore improper comments and rudeness. I was not given a copy of the contract until after the date passed by to allow me review of the contract. I was not given the work-list until after the final papers were signed, and I have never received an itemized list of costs. Aid to do repairs on my home from this agency was half-performed, but two liens for all the work were placed on my home regardless. The water situation was abandoned. The agency remains unresponsive to reducing the liens per work actually performed, and I am often told they don't have to. The work unperformed, and yet paid for, was paid to the Contractor the agency hired - and this is at the expense of taxpayers.

Two liens were applied on my home for up to 6 years, of amounts uninformed to me by the agency, and I am denied the dates of the filings of these liens by the agency. All work to be done was not done, and materials and products appear to be of lower cost than alleged by the agency. The agency performed water tests, though not in adequate methods, which resulted as being contaminated with Coliform. The response was to place a water filtration system on the water line for about $720, and put a lien on my home for an additional 5 years. There were no other options made accessible, and a request for the water test to be retaken is ignored. I was not provided information of what funding sources are holding the liens upon my home, via these grants, though I later found out it is NY State Affordable Housing, and DHCR.

DHCR will not investigate the issues of the agency further than minimally done. To obtain information of the funding sources, I had me go in circles, calling place after place, and no resolution was even possible in the end. The water remains allegedly contaminated. A complaint to the Attorney General's office was of false information in response by the agency involved, and no other response has yet come. A current letter to the Attorney General's office remains without response. I have requested an audit of the agency, but received ridicule and discombobulation about my request. However, an audit of this agency absolutely must occur. The taxpayers paid for work not completed, and my home is leveraged for it.

I attempted to contact local politicians. The Assemblywoman of my jurisdiction, via her representative of her office, stated, "We make laws, we don't enforce them". Senator Meier's office relayed to me that they "have no place" within the issues, and that the workers "may have had a bad day". Governor Pataki's office forwarded my issues to the overseeing granting source of an agency of my complaint, and because of the "protect their own" parenting responses seemed adequate to that office, the Governor's office saw the issue as attended to properly.

A friend has tried to obtain a list of services from the St. Lawrence County Community Services Board and the St. Lawrence County Community Services Mental Health Subcommittee during the three years, but had not been successful until recently filing FOIL requests. Upon filing FOIL requests to the Director of the Community Services Board and the Mental Health Services Coordinator, he was referred by the Director of the Community Services Board to counseling services for himself - which was of no basis of response to his requests. Though he requested records of allegedly public information, he was told, at one time, by a board member belonging to both boards that his request needs to be reviewed and was placed on their agenda for discussion. It appears a Freedom of Information Act paperwork may need to be filed for very simple requests.


Who and what I am versus who and what the views want me to be has developed into a blockage and resistance to meet my needs and address my concerns. I am to become who I am created to be before any contacted worker, Legislator or politician, or other State and County employee deals with me. The agenda thus is not of protection of my basic human rights, nor as rights I hold as an American constituent with disabilities. Formed opinions and personal views by State and County employees have been communicated amongst each other freely, which has formed a solid base of resistance to deal with me in any manner. This method of operation has proven to be manipulative to oppose my positive efforts in the situations I am within.

The grand opinion manifested has therefore taken away my rights, regardless of who I am. Personal views and opinions appear to be misconstrued as professional opinions and/or pieces of information of my diagnoses. Such instances of further labeling by the State and County agencies are in terms of degradation. An individual of the Office of Mental Health had labeled me as a "disgruntled mentally ill individual", and alleged that my friend could be sued if he pressed forward to the public with these issues. Local County agencies have labeled me as "belligerent", "mentally unstable", "incompetent", "nasty", and "difficult". These are clearly personal views, yet they are accepted upon new contacts asking of the issues as professional pieces of information. This appears to be a broad view of the disabled, and not centered on just an individual, but it is very focused upon me at this point. Though I am intelligent, some form of misunderstanding has occurred frequently in my dealings with these agencies, as I am suppose to not be intelligent - based on what has been relayed to me. Because I am intelligent, it is used as a negative factor against my favor.

I was told to prove I am disabled, though it was proven already on a federal level. When I pressed that it was proven on a federal level, with the assistance of Congressman John McHugh's office, and should not have to prove it on a County level, I was told it wasn't asked of me. I was told to divulge abuses and tragedies that have wrought my life with pain to appeal for County help, and thereafter information of those abuses were used against my favor. Violations of my personal being have remained consistent and unrelenting, and are appearing to be of malice and forethought. Personal views (though unprofessional) are discussed so freely amongst these involved agencies, and are expressed about me, whether false or otherwise, without proper releases of information and authorization to do so.

Though education should be in place to know better, I was and am being treated in terms of separation and discrimination from the average whole of the County service providers. Not only are the disabled and low income treated poorly in the usual process of these agencies' operations, but I have become an exception to that accepted rule of behavior, within discrimination, and I am being treated different than others applying for services who already endure less dignity and respect simply because they are applying. There is in place a very high level of societal resentment towards low-income people on the system in this North Country area, and it is growing in small increments. I have been told by agencies at present I am not "grateful" for assistance I was given, though this is far removed from the truth. It is not being considered or validated that I cannot be satisfied with abuse, retaliation, and extreme resistance to assistance that has been fought tooth-and-nail for, and for eligible assistance I have not been given. Contrarily, I am grateful for any assistance I am given in times of need.

No protection has come forward, legal or otherwise, regardless of dignity, respect, and basic human rights. No local advocate will protect and/or defend me. More so, it appears that the County and State are receiving the advocacy, and I am left to face this alone. Outside advocates have been fearful that I would be, again, threatened with institutionalization for my strong efforts of advocacy, and said to contact them if this occurred. I have often been told I have remained polite and respectful in all of my communications, though they believe they could not have done so in the same circumstances themselves. The legal assistance for the poor for my area appears to not wish to fully involve themselves in the issues. More so, to support their status of non-involvement, they have stated they do not find there are legal issues, and that even if I am eligible to receive services it does not mean I need to obtain them.

No one has sat down with me and told me what I can be offered for services. More so, I am told that I cannot obtain some services due to the inability to leave my home. Some services are held out of my reach, because the agencies were involved in the issues. I cannot obtain holiday food baskets nor food pantry items, due to inability to leave my home because of my disability. When pressed as to why I cannot have a case worker bring the food to my home, the emailed response from a County case manager that was assigned to me was, "I AM TIRED ...........". When I asked for a list of services for homebound individuals from the County Administrator, Director of Community Services Board, and other County employees, no response was forthcoming. When a meeting was requested to resolve all the issues, the meeting was denied by the County Administrator. My inability to leave my home is appearing to be used as an excuse to further deny me services, as well as home meetings to resolve issues. Due to my inability to leave my home, I am considered non-compliant to resolutions. Thus, these agencies place me in a catch-22 situation, unfairly, unnecessarily, and unprofessionally.

After contacting the Board of Legislators, the County was thereafter legally protected by the County Attorney. I have no legal representation, nor have I been supplied with proof of legal action against me by the County. The boards, committees, and agencies are suppose to refer me to the County Attorney. This is a highly unusual method of procedures and behaviors of the County toward an individual in need, and it is an additional expense the taxpayers are paying for.

I have had need to defend myself, in my home and otherwise, with all I know and have learned. I am considered by others outside the issue to have been articulate, intelligent, and a very assertive and powerful advocate for myself. Yet, the negative views of State and County individuals in place are still resistant to my efforts of resolution. I have 7 binders, three and a half inches thick, with emails, notes, and letters to support all this information. However, I do not think there is consideration of possibility of whether or not State or County individuals may be supplying information in bias to protect themself or their own. More so, the negative views should not be in place to begin with. No matter how I am personally viewed, I should be able to receive any and all services I am eligible to receive, based on availability of funding.