GRH4V: The Issues THEY refuse to acknowlege.

      Well, here they are, for ANYONE to read and find out about. THIS is what the administration at GRH4V and the Board of Managers refuse to address. 

NO MORE EXCUSES.. It is time to put up or shut up. Show us the results if you can.

1.       Lack of voice for veterans.—Veterans have no voice here to act on their behalf. The staff does not listen, and does not care. Most are here just to get a paycheck. If they did care, these issues would have been addressed long ago.

2.       Deterioration of quality of life for veterans due to poor management. Many organizations and people who have volunteered for years, have been driven out, kicked out, or just gave up, due to poor administration policies and lack of cooperation by the staff. Sara Dun has accomplished NOTHING that improves the quality of life for veterans here. In fact, many of her decisions and policies have made things worse. And she was only supposed to have been a temporary administer until a proper one could be hired. Rumors that a 6 month rule for a temporary administer were ignored, and some back door politics is what has allowed her to stay on as acting administrator.

3.       Lack of accountability and misappropriations of donated funds and goods. We have documented several cases of donations being misplaced, re-routed, and or out right stolen, items being sent to a second hand store that never get to veterans, and numerous missing donations that never get to veterans.

4.       Systematic removal of veteran support organizations, and volunteers. Many groups and individual people have been targeted and removed, told not to come back, and/or refused access to the home. A petition signed by over 400 veterans to get Don Kramer back, fell on deaf ears. Seems anyone who actually did good for veterans has been removed unless they belonged to the “inner group” that is now running the home.

5.       Lack of any viable chain of command, nor any continuity of policy enforcement. Can anyone tell any of you who is in charge of your choice of units here? For example, who is in charge of the Dormitory unit? The Alzheimer unit? 2 Blue?  Policy established in writing is applied as they see fit, not uniformly. Even the Board of Managers claimed they did NOT know the 4th floor was being closed—AFTER it was already closed!

6.       Systematic pillage of veterans financial assets using the guardian/conservator laws. It is becoming clear to those of us who are now on vigilance, that the home is using the states conservator/guardian laws to systematically remove all assets from a veteran, if he/she has any, once they get here and if they are an older veteran.  

      While the Homes’ original lawful intention was to be able to provide guardianship or conservator services to Veterans (members) who needed it due to lack of any help from outside, or from family; we believe the law is being used to many times, and many times where it is not needed, resulting in veterans being abused and taken advantage of and having their assets stripped from them without their consent and approval. 

7.  Mail tampering, no mail system is existent, no safe guards in place.    All Members mail is opened by the staff, because most of us signed a statement allowing them to open it for purposes of doing the payment paperwork. That is to take care of the paperwork dealing with Social Security or our pensions, and such.    However, this privilege has been abused by the people who open the mail - and we have found out that many are volunteers - strangers opening our mail. And things we need to get are not getting to us.  This is NOT a valid "home" mailing address, but is listed as a business - yet for veterans it IS our home, and our address.. US Post office does not deliver mail here - it is picked up at the post office by one of the grounds workers who then transports it from the GR Post office to the home.  We need a post office, for the home, like the ones in the military. Where people ARE  held accountable for the mail they handle..

8.      Constructive fraud of members application contract, and monthly financial Statements.  The Member admittance application clearly says members are responsible for the monthly cost of being here. Yet Members never receive copies of their admittance contract, nor monthly financial statements. 

9.       No security for veterans on the facility. Security departments first and only contractual job, is fire watch. It is not drunk watch, or anything else.

10.   A Home that is not a Home,  A Hospital by any other name. If This were a real home, Veterans would have more than 58 feet square of personal living space. If this were a real Hospital, we would have better health care. We pay way to much for what little service we get. Taxpayers are footing the bill too and its costing them too much.

11.  Theft of veterans personal property from rooms by staff, with excuse its policy enforcement. When a member (veteran) goes to the store and buys something for his/her room, and brings it back, and the staff member says they cannot have it and to turn it over to the staff who does NOT reimburse the member, nor returns the item, this is theft.

12    Kitchen and Dining, The food is a threat to the health of veterans. Meals served cold, Under cooked food, poor variety of available choices. Too many empty calories and carbohydrates. This has been an ongoing issue for over 2 years now. The food here is actually a health risk for many veterans. And we are tired of talking to the Staff who refuse to do anything about it.

And these are just 12 of many, many issues that are being ignored by the GRH4V staff.

The entire board of Directors, and the Acting (temp) Administrator ARE the problem. They are costing Michigan taxpayers more than it should to run this facility, and they are running it very poorly. And they are costing Veterans more than we can afford. 

Acting director Sara Dunne is just plain and simple the wrong person for the job—and the results of nearly 2 years of her administrating are at best, an example of putting the wrong person in the wrong position.  

Actions speak louder than words, so look at the results of this Administrations actions and you will see FAILURE, unless the only goal of the Administration is to balance the States Budget on the backs of Veterans.

Many veterans are afraid to speak up, out of fear of being targeted for expulsion. For many, this is the last place they have to live for they have no were else to go and so they are afraid of being kicked out for speaking out.

Added Dec 2014

13. Lack of medical records computer systems at the home, to be able to communicate and update veterans health records with the VA system, so that the records are up to date.  The VA cannot access the veterans medical records from the home and the home cannot access the VA medical records. This is causing medical care problems for Veterans.