... with another incident report.
This morning a guy came asking for a sandwich and some money. The girl covering the door refused the last couple of days and he got very angry and raised his voice at her yesterday, so when he came to the door this morning I opened it and she hid around the corner. He asked for the same thing, and I said no to the money, and said, "But I'll give you a sandwich." He was angry but left. He returned this afternoon and once again I went to the door so our young person wouldn't have to, and he said he wanted the money now, then he stepped forward towards me and tried to push his way into the rectory. He put his foot in the door. I pushed as hard as I could and he pushed back but eventually I got the door closed and put the chain on it. He opened up the letter slot and said in a threatening way, "I can still see you," and I answered, "Yes, but I'm not opening the door to you." He started swearing and I said I would not talk to him when he was talking like that. Finally he left.
As soon as the boss was out of a meeting he was in I told him I wanted to talk to him. The young lady came with me to provide the background from the past few days as his behaviour has been escalating. I told the boss I feel like I am in danger, especially since this guy has some major anger issues and he's very big and strong. The boss laughed and said, "You'd be a martyr," and I told him flat out that that wasn't funny. The boss finally agreed there will be no more financial assistance given at the door and we need this to be a uniform policy, otherwise we're just putting everyone else in danger when one person gets help and another person doesn't, and the word gets around on the street.
Thank goodness it's the weekend.
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3 comments:
Don't you have a St. Vincent de Paul Society?
I am in it here in Orangeville.
Though we have an open church where the office is in the vestibule - our secretary provides people with the phone # of the St. Vincent de Paul Society so that we can do a visit.
Only for one time only emergency situations does the seretary provide a McD's or Tim Horton coupon.
You may want to put a notice up that no cash is available and for food assistance etc.. please call The St. V de Paul Society - if you have one.
Have they never had these types of situations arise?
I am surprise no policy is in place at your place.
Pax Christi,
Teresa B.
We do, but the parish has, for a long time, given out sandwiches. Eventually they started giving out tokens, which I always thought was being abused. Now when we're scaling back, people are getting violent. We will have a policy - and I hope a sign, though I suspect it will just get torn down by some angry person - as of next week.
I think you guys need to call the cops too -- just to let them know you've changed your policy and there may well be some disgruntled citizens harassaing you for a few days -- maybe they can do some drive-bys?
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