Another Ethics Question

[Dancing David]

I have a dilema

In my town there is the 'agency' which provides a very valuable service in my town. It is the net that catches everybody who falls through the cracks in the social services. They provide housing to people who otherwise might be homeless. Get straned in twon, you can go there. Get kicked out of a group home, you can go there. get kicked out of residential treatment, you can go there. Get kicked out of a shelter you can go there.

In any social service network there are gaps, people who can't meet the criteria to get into a shelter, people who are refused shelter because the system is full (very common), people who fail out of a program. So there is a real need in my town for this 'agency' to exist. There are people who would suffer because there is no place for them to stay.

Here comes the dilema:
There are people in this agency who take advantage of some of the people who they are supposed to help. If they percieve you as being vulnerable, then they will expoit it, especialy sexualy. The people in charge of this agency do not seem to want to police this, they may even be actively involved in it.

So, if I call the cops and report what is going on this 'agency' may close and an otherwise valuable service would be gone. What certain people are doing is wrong.

What do you think?

[Skeptical Greg]

Agencies don't do bad things, people do...


Would exposing the bad people, cause the demise of the agency?

How are they funded?

[A_Feeble_Mind]

Although there may be a potential for a negative outcome, I think it is important to report this. As with many things, there are often more outcomes than initially thought. There is the possibility, for example, that when you report this, the organization is investigated, but nothing is found; however it might be enough to cause a shakeup in the leadership.

[Yahweh]

This agency that helps that homeless sounds like a good idea. Although it might have some criteria to meet I'm sure they are standard criteria so to meet minimal security and satisfactory living conditions. If the criteria involve anything like "Have you commited a crime, are you free of diseases, are you a fugitive, are you mentally stable" then I'm sure they are a perfectly legitimate way to help weed out the more offensive/unlawful/dangerous group of people. If they reject someone because they are full then I'm sure they have reached maximum occupancy which is defined to be "within safe limits". They wont reject anyone if this agency has a vacancy and if it has as good intentions as "helping the homeless find shelter". But, I'm a cynic so I say that if we are going to shelter the homeless the least we can do is make them an integral part of society by putting them to work (but no so much to take away jobs from other people... other things like building a house, caring for animals). People who think they will recieve a free place to live and free food without doing something in return are people who should live under a porch and dig in trashcans.

[roger]

Is it possible to tell the people in charge that you plan to report them _unless_ they clean up their act? I can see all kinds of pitfalls w/ this method, but there are already problems w/ reporting or not reporting, so perhaps it's the lesser of 3 evils?

Of course if they don't change then you have an even bigger dialemma on your hands.

[ebola]

Report it. Report it now. This agency produces a ready supply of victims for these predators. There is no better setup for them.

Eric

[SteveW]

May I assume the "agency" is the Holy Roman Catholic Church? It sounds like something that cult would be into.

Seriously, I would wager it is a faith based "agency" and should be reported.

[justsaygnosis]

I'd report it.
If it goes unreported it will remain unchanged.
As the catholic church is experiencing now it is far better for the entire structure to be reevaluated than an entirely unethical and predatory segment of it to remain unchecked.