It is usually futile to try to get staff people anywhere to make guests or clients stop harassing me. I continue to be harassed at the Pine Street Inn; I was harassed a lot last night. I also had a bed, for the second night in a row, that is near the locker room door. It doesn't get quiet there until after 10 p.m., and is loud again by 4:30 a.m.
That staff usually don't try to stop the coughing harassment and harassment like it encourages these bullies to do it. Some staff are more sympathetic than others, but the issue will continue everywhere as long as there continues to be general denial about what the deliberate coughing and gestures like it mean, and general denial that those gestures are harassment.
I never provoke the harassment. Because I know that there's usually nothing that I can do about it, I often ignore it until I can't anymore. Then I lose my temper and call the person something unflattering, which risks my getting into trouble either from the harasser escalating the situation or from the harasser telling a staffperson that I swore at her for nothing. That's how I have gotten permanently barred from almost every shelter in the Boston area.
There are homeless people who like to try to provoke other homeless people into doing something that will get the bullied targets barred.
The denial about these issues is life-threatening.
Copyright L. Kochman, June 3, 2015 @ 12:37 p.m./edited, with additions, @ 12:48 p.m.
