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Q&A
Accountability process for food quality complaints in shelters
1:00:21
·
111 sec
Council Member Julie Won raises concerns about the accountability process for food quality complaints in shelters, particularly regarding the expansion of contracts with vendors receiving numerous complaints.
- Julie Won cites specific examples of residents complaining about inedible and non-halal food
- Kate MacKenzie emphasizes the importance of using formal complaint systems for proper documentation and investigation
- Amanda Farías inquires about how frequently cases reported in the media are monitored and acted upon
Julie Won
1:00:21
And again I keep on asking the same question so we just saw in this one contract Riviera got an additional $10,000,000 to expand the food contract despite all of the complaints.
1:00:33
I was physically with mayor Eric Adams with a hoard of residents at Austell Place where they implored him, begged him to stop the contract with Riviera because the food was so disgusting.
1:00:47
So what is the process for accountability when people continue to complain that the food is inedible, the food is not halal, the food is not digestible and they can't survive like this?
Kate MacKenzie
1:01:03
Would part of what it sounds like is happening here is that there are a lot of perhaps complaints being made but in order for the agency to actually explore them and document and go into the process, the formal system has to be utilized, which is whether it's, you know, calling the ombudsman, using the code, but making sure that those are substantiated, that's the work of DHS.
1:01:33
And so really, you know, if you're hearing them too, I encourage you to maintain that conversation with DHS so that they can be explored and not just raised without the exploration and investigations that are warranted.
Amanda Farías
1:01:47
And just just a quick follow-up to that, mean how frequently are you folks monitoring cases that come up in the press, in the media and then using that to then either do a corrective action, to do a checkup, to do investigation.
1:01:59
I mean a lot of the things that chair one is bringing up are not only things that we hear when we go to shelters or when we've had our past hearings, but they're also direct calls to action from local governance on these contracts that we've seen in the press.