Privacy Policy

Effective Date: July 1, 2024

Southeastern Massachusetts Veterans Housing Program (Veterans Transition House, “VTH”) was founded by local veterans and has provided transitional and permanent housing services and supportive health and human services to homeless veterans since 1990. VTH has served more than 3,000 veterans in thirty years and currently serves 100 unique homeless veterans residing in seven revitalized properties throughout New Bedford. An additional 49 unique veterans are served through VTH’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families program. The delivery and management of comprehensive supportive human services is essential to the effectiveness of VTH’s housing strategies.

Scope of this policy

Southeastern Massachusetts Veterans Housing Program (Veterans Transition House, “VTH”), takes our obligation to protect the confidentiality of your information very seriously. This Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) describes how we collect, store, and share your information when you interact with VTH. This Policy applies to all interactions with VTH.

Information we collect

• Information You Give Us. We collect and store any information you enter on this Site directly, from the devices you use to interact with us, and from third parties. We may combine information from the Site together and with other information we obtain from our business records. We may use information that we aggregate (compile to create statistics that cannot identify a particular individual) or de-identify (strip information of all unique identifiers such that it cannot be linked to a particular individual) at our discretion.

You may provide the following information to us directly:

• • Contact and professional information, including name, email address, telephone number, and job title, as well as company name.
  • Demographic information.
  • Payment information, including credit card information.
  • Information contained in your communications to us.
  • Information you make available to us via a social media platform.
  • Any information or data you provide by interacting in our online forums and chatrooms, or by commenting on content posted on our Site. Please note that these comments are also visible to other users of our Site.
  • Information you submit to inquire about or apply for a job with us.
  • Any other information you submit to us.

• Information We Collect Automatically. When you interact with this Site, certain information about your use of this Site is automatically collected. Much of this information is collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies, as well as through your web browser or device. This includes:
  • Details of your visits to our site and information generated in the course of the use of our site (including the timing, frequency and pattern of service use) including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, the resources that you access, and how you reached this Site.
  • Diagnostic information such as web traffic logs.
  • Details regarding the device you use to access this Site, including, but not limited to, your IP address, operating system, and browser type.
  • Information about how you interact with our ads, including whether you open or click links in any correspondence.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to disable or reject cookies. If you delete your cookies or if you set your browser to decline cookies, some features of the Site may not be available, work, or work as designed.

How We Use and Protect Information We Collect

• How We Use Your Information. We may use any of the information we collect for the following purposes.
  • Fundraising: To make requests or donations.
  • Security: To protect and secure our Site, assets, network, and business operations, and to detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be fraudulent or illegal.
  • Legal compliance: To comply with legal process, such as warrants, subpoenas, court orders, and lawful regulatory or law enforcement requests and to comply with applicable legal requirements.
• Security: Security of information communicated by or to us over the Internet is of utmost concern to us; however, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. This Site incorporates physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect the security, integrity, and privacy of the personal information we have collected. We have put in place precautions to protect information from loss, misuse, and alteration, including Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and database encryption. Please do not use email to communicate information to us that you consider confidential.

Additional Information About Our Data Collection and Sharing Practices

• Change of Ownership or Corporate Organization: As we continue to develop our business, we may buy, merge or partner with other companies or businesses, and in so doing, acquire customer information. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. Similarly, in the event that a portion or substantially all of Southeastern Massachusetts Veterans Housing Program’s (Veterans Transition House’s, “VTH’s”) assets are sold or transferred to a third party, customer information (including Personally Identifiable Information) would likely be one of the transferred business assets. We cannot promise that an acquiring party or the merged entity will have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Policy.
• External Links: This Site may provide links to various websites that we do not control. When you click on one of these links, you will be transferred out of this Site and connected to the website of the organization or company that you selected. We are not responsible for the nature, quality or accuracy of the content or opinions expressed on such websites, or of the services provided through such websites. Such websites are not investigated, monitored, or checked for quality, accuracy, or completeness by us. Inclusion of any linked website on this Site does not imply or express an approval or endorsement of the linked website by us, or of any of the content, opinions, products, or services provided on these websites. Even if an affiliation exists between our Site and a third-party website, we exercise no control over linked sites. Each of these linked sites maintains its own independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. While VTH expects its partners and affiliates to respect the privacy of our users, VTH cannot be responsible for the actions of third parties. If you visit a website that is linked to from our Site, we encourage you to consult that website’s privacy policy before providing any personal information and whenever interacting with any website.
• Cross Border Transfer of Information: This Site is controlled, operated, and administered entirely within the United States. If you use this Site outside of the United States, you understand that we may collect, process, and store your information in the United States. The laws in the U.S. regarding information may be different from the laws of your state or country. Any such transfers will comply with safeguards as required by relevant law.
• Data Retention: We may store information about you for as long as we have a legitimate business need for it.
• Information about children: The Services are intended for users age eighteen and older. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected information from anyone younger than the age of 18, we will delete that information. Please contact us with any concerns.
• Sharing of Medical or Health Information: To the extent that we receive protected health information about you, that information is subject to electronic disclosure to the extent permitted by applicable law.
• SMS statement: We would like to assure you that we highly value your privacy when it comes to SMS communication. Any consent you provide for receiving SMS notifications, reminders, or updates is solely used for communicating important information related to our services. Rest assured that we do not share your phone numbers or SMS consent with any third parties or affiliates

Your Options and Rights Regarding Your Information

If you do not wish to receive information from us or wish to opt out of future email from us, please contact us.

Making a request to exercise your rights

Submitting requests: You may request to exercise your rights by making a request using the contact information below. We may have a reason under the law why we do not have to comply with your request, or why we may comply with it in a more limited way than you anticipated. If we do, we will explain that to you in our response.

Verification: We must verify your identity before responding to your request. We verify your identity by asking you to provide personal identifiers that we can match against information we may have collected from you previously. We may need to follow up with you to request more information to verify identity. We will not use personal information we collect in connection with verifying or responding to your request for any purpose other than responding to your request.

Modifications to Privacy Policy

We may make changes to this Policy from time to time. The “Effective Date” at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information described in this Policy.

Contact

We welcome your questions, comments and all feedback pertaining to your privacy or any other issue with regard to this Site. You may contact us at:

Southeastern Massachusetts Veterans Housing Program (Veterans Transition House, “VTH”)
Attn: Privacy and Security Officer
1297 Purchase St.

New Bedford, MA  02740-6636

(508) 992-5313