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Suit Filed Against
Battered Women’s Shelter in Hyannis
Nev Moore Sues
Independence House
for Forcing Her to Accept Services
March 9, 2001
A
suit was filed yesterday by a former client of a battered women’s
service center in Hyannis, Independence House, Nev Moore, President
of Justice for Families.
Moore
claims she was forced by DSS to accept services and attend meetings
at Independence House against her will.
When
she initially refused to attend, DSS took her children and placed
them in foster care to force her to comply with their demands.
She was to later discover that approximately two-thirds of Independence
House funding comes from DSS. She believes that due to Independence
House’s financial dependence on DSS, they collude with the Department
to force clients to accept services, and they help DSS open new
cases by betraying women’s confidentiality.
Moore
claims this not only boosts DSS’s cases, but pads Independence
House’s client numbers and artificially inflates the domestic
violence statistics. These
statistics are then used by DSS and Independence House to plead
for more money from the legislature.
Since
her own case has been publicized, Moore has received numerous
calls from other women who claim that they also were forced by
DSS to attend Independence House, under threat of losing their
children. Their confidential conversations at Independence House
meetings were also disclosed to DSS.
Independence
House support groups are held behind closed doors, and a confidentiality
notice is read at the start of each meeting that assures the women:
“What’s said in here, stays in this room.”
“DSS
told me that I would not get our daughter home until my attitude
changed and I showed them that I had ‘accepted the message’ of
Independence House. Attending
wasn’t enough – I had to ‘prove’ to DSS that I had ‘accepted the
message’ – whatever that means,” says Moore.
“What
DSS used against me was that I complained in the Independence
House meetings that I did not want to be there and was being forced
to attend through intimidation, threats, and coercion.
I said in the meetings that they needed to remove the word
‘Independence’ from their title. Their motto is ‘Independence House: the Freedom to Make Your
Own Choices’ - well, my choice was not to be there.
“Independence
House did everything to me that they claim would be control and
emotional abuse if a man did it. I felt so violated. Our little girl suffered terribly.
Independence House, of all places, should understand that
when a woman says ‘no’ – it means ‘no.’”
The
suit, which was filed by Attorney Greg Hession of Belchertown
in Barnstable Superior Court, alleges civil rights violations
and unfair trade practices, breach of confidentiality, and resulting
emotional abuse.
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