I am not trying to distract. I am just wondering why people are calling this an Equine Therapy program, if HLA is not calling it that.
HLA has advertised the hiring of an "equine therapist." To me this means "equine therapy." I don't know how the're spinning it to parents, but from past experience I can only guess that they tell each individual parent or agency whatever they want to hear at the moment, true or not.
Slave Labor- What specifically were they having to do? My understanding is that if they want to work with the horses, they have to be involved with all parts of it. Grooming, cleaning, riding. It is all voluntary.
Kids and staff from HLA were used to improve the MBA property.
There's a couple of issues here. One, using the kids as labor for material improvement of the owner's property is in violation of their accreditation requirements and ORS regulation.
Two, use of employees from a not-for-profit company and the attendees of the program to improve
privately owned property for the material benefit of it's owner is illegal.
In addition, I've have been told by parents that their children were forced to do the work and it was not voluntary (in either case it's still illegal).
I also understand that they were using the MBA property because there were already structures there that could be used for a stable, instead of having to wait for the builders to put one on HLA's property. It got the kids riding faster.
They're using MBA property because there was a chicken coop that they converted into a barn using free labor of kids and staff that are paid by HLA. Again, illegal.
They could not build on the HLA property (which was the original plan) because they have not made payment on their loans and construction contracts and cannot borrow any money or hire a contractor to do the work because of bad credit, bad payment history and outstanding lawsuits demanding payment for services.
The "riding program" is still not running, but the hurried construction and purchasing of horses was simply for the benefit of visiting Ed Cons on the "Dogwood Tour" to allay their concerns of HLA's financial viability and rampant allegations (and documented proof) from former employees about abuse and neglect, including soaking up largesse from gullible parents while simultaneously cutting services to the bone and placement of violent criminals (rapists, batterers and pedophiles) into the program by the owner (to name just a few).
DJ? Do you see anything untrue about these statements?
Yes, I certainly do.
