ARE YOU A MAN WHO "WENT HOMELESS" TO AVOID PAYING CHILD SUPPORT?

We've heard certain men bragging that now that they've "gone homeless" and are staying at a shelter and on GR or other benefits, they no longer have to pay any child support.  They say the state sends their ex a letter.

These men may be relieved of having to find a job, support themselves, or their children, at least for a while, and maybe they've been trying and are stressed out or broken, but it bothers us that they might go so far to revenge the mother of their children that they have ruined their own lives in the process.

The cost of living in Southern California is high and sometimes unemployment is the beginning of the tumble into homelessness.  Once homeless its difficult to get back up and into a regular life.

While we'd love some commentary on this issue, and we know not everyone with financial problems is a fraud.

Our question to these men is DON'T CHILDREN DESERVE BETTER?

MEMORIAL DAY 2015

THREE BUTTERFLIES ON WEEDS

SANTA MONICA HOMELESS POPULATION DECREASES - UPWARD BOUND HOUSE

NEONTOMMY - SANTA MONICAS HOMELESS POP DECREASING by Kaitlin Propeck |

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May 16, 2014   In the past year the total number dropped from 780 to 742 individuals, and the street count dropped from 380 to 346 individuals. ...

 

Shelters like Upward Bound House work to help get people off of the streets and provide them with housing. Upward Bound House has helped over 800 families transition from homelessness to permanent housing since it was founded in 1991. 

 

The main goal of the shelter is to get homeless families with underage children off of the streets. "The idea is to have everybody self-sufficient in a certain amount of time," according to Booker Pearson, co-founder of Upward Bound House. The shelter has established various programs that provide financial assistance so that the families can obtain stable housing. Currently, the shelter serves about 200 people everyday, people of all ages and from many different walks of life. 

 

UPWARD BOUND HOUSE  We posted on this shelter before.  It is for working people with children.

LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS - LONG LIST OF PROVIDERS OF SERVICES, FOOD, SHELTER, ETC

We are concerned citizens, homeless service agencies, and representatives of government, religious, and civic organizations. We are housed, homeless, and formerly homeless—all working to coordinate services, find and fill gaps in needs, and determine ways to end homelessness in Long Beach.

HOMELESS LONG BEACH - LINKS TO HELP - VARIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

multiple resources for food, clothing, shelter, tutoring for children, medical and dental care, from Governmental, Catholic, Christian, Lutheran, etc... including CENTROSHALOM

PALO VERDE - LOS ANGELES FAMILY HOUSING - ANOTHER SCANDAL! WORD ON THE STREET

The Palo Verde Apartments in Sun Valley has become the scene of another scandal. 

Where are the real journalists for the Daily News or the Jewish Journal to investigate and report the whole story instead of doing the usual PR spin cloaked as news to scratch the back of the CEO?


Word on the street is that another employee of Los Angeles Family Housing has been fired in recent months, this time a woman who was embezzling money from the "clients" rental money.  LAFH and Palo Verde Apartments needs a forensic accountant. 

How could this go on and no one notice?

Most residents of this building pay a portion of their rent, even though they are on a BUILDING BASED VOUCHER.  Which means that if they move out of the building they must get a different voucher such as a Section 8 voucher or make a go of it on their own, perhaps in a room for rent in a house.  Some of these housing vouchers are given on the basis that the person  is or was experiencing mental health problems or simply they have endured a great deal of poverty for a long period of time and have no where else to turn. Some of these people want to get well and are looking for work or going to school to redirect their lives.  They live on very little money as is. 

They paid their rent, it went into an account, and then the money, and we hear it was a hell of a lot, went missing.

What about this woman who was fired for embezzling?  Where is she working now when she should be sitting in prison?




Since two employees of Los Angeles Family Housing Valley Shelter, heterosexual men, have been fired or chose to "move on" since 2008 for sexual harassment and/or actually taking homeless women to apartments or motel rooms for sex, and in at least one case the homeless person was told that if she did not have sex she would not get housing, you'd think that the case managers and other employees would start getting serious about being paid professionals working with a very desperate and dependent population.  You'd think that they'd be afraid of loosing their jobs or careers even if their own personal moral compass was spinning, but they sure seem to be empowered by a tolerant management and a management that DOES NOT WANT THE NEIGHBORHOOD, LAW ENFORCEMENT, or CONTRIBUTORS or FUNDERS to know the truth.

We've heard of other situations since then - heterosexual and homosexual - in which case managers do not have healthy boundaries when dealing with homeless residents.  WHAT A HORRIBLE THING TO DO, to threatened a person who has experienced homelessness and is at the shelter in order to get housing, with the loss of that opportunity because they will not "comply" with sexual or other unreasonable demands.  Yet we hear that the heterosexual men who were fired just went to work in some other social worker job here in Southern California.
 



It's a shame that so many social services agencies in Los Angeles, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, feel so confident that when they refer someone who comes to them for help to LAFH, they will be going to a good place and end up in a good place.

LAWYERS NEEDED BY HOMELESS AND EX-HOMELESS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Though we run some links on our side-bar for legal advisories, lawyer referrals, and groups like the ACLU, which does class action law suits, we are often asked about lawyers in Southern California who do civil action law suits for people who are destitute.  Most lawyers are in it for the money and don't really care about us.

SO IF YOU ARE A LAWYER, YOU HAVE A LAWYER YOU LIKE, or you want to tell us about a lawyer who didn't do right by you, there is our COMMENT option.  (Please provide a link to a web site when possible.)

We think all the agreements we sign to not sue are a lot of BS, because usually there is no choice, unless you want to go back to the street or without medical care, and signing is under duress.  We think agreeing to arbitration is typical of how poor people in America are asked to be agreeable in order to have services or go without.

Currently we know people who would like to sue nonprofits like North East Valley Medical Clinic and Olive View Medical Center and West Valley Mental Health for medical malpractice or psychology malpractice including misdiagnosis, malingering on treatment, failure to protect medical privacy, damaging a persons reputation or ability to get work as a result of discussing shelter resident's medical or psychological diagnosis with other residents or clients, as well as for the breaking of contractual agreements by shelters to get them housing.

Homeless are also dealing with being the victims of crime including rape and violence by other people living or working at a shelter, where management and security guards hide or fail to report crime or allow perpetrators remain while kicking out victims.

SO.... ANY LAWYERS OUT THERE WHO CARE?

SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE - TEX WILLIAMS - HOMELESS SMOKERS! LINK HERE FOR FREE HELP TO STOP SMOKING!)

WORD ON THE STREET : If you happen to want to quit smoking most free, homeless, or low income clinics do have funding to help you quit.

HERE IS A LINK TO SOME FREE HELP INCLUDING FREE PATCHES....

HEALTHY LIVING CALIFORNIA CDPH GOV - STOP SMOKING

BUTTERFLIES AND STRAWBERRIES : COLORING PAGE FOR OUR HOMELESS CHILDREN

ARE BURBANK SECTION 8 LANDLORDS SLUMLORDS? QUESTION FOR RENTERS ON SECTION 8

We've been hearing complaints about the way landlords who take Section 8 in Burbank, California are playing their tenants.  Burbank, unlike the City of Los Angeles, has NO RENT CONTROL.  So renters in Burbank who aren't even using Section 8 vouchers can experience having their rents raised at any time and by hundreds of dollars.

We're hearing that Burbank Section 8 tenants fear eviction if they make legitimate requests for repairs, that landlords blame them and want money for things like old carpet that is worn out due to regular use rather than abuse, and some have been calling in friends to help them deal with broken plumbing and so on rather than report it.  They are afraid their landlords will raise the rent so that they have to move when they don't have deposit money and will become homeless.   This makes Burbank a bad place to rent.

ARE BURBANK LANDLORDS WORSE THAN MOST?  Are they only taking Section 8 because they can't rent their run down old buildings to people who have more choice in housing?

We'd like to hear more from those of you who have been renting in Burbank with the help of Section 8.

HIV - AIDS UPDATE - STATS - HOUSING - LIVING HOMELESS AND SICK

CDC CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL - UNITED STATES - STATS

ENDHOMELESSNESS ORG - HOMELESSNESS AND HIV AIDS FACT SHEET

NATIONAL AIDS HOUSING ORG   PDF  detailed report

According to this site 1.1 Million people in the United States have HIV/AIDS and 145, 366 need housing.

HIV/AIDS Housing Need :  (This means the stats are of people who have HIV/AIDS)
A snapshot from across the country  AIDS housing need remains at crisis levels throughout the country. Many waiting are homeless or unstably housed and multiply diagnosed with mental health, substance abuse and other health challenges. A sample of NAHC members reveals the high unmet HIV/AIDS housing need in both cities and states:
 Dallas, TX: 4,844 households with unmet housing subsidy need and 708 households on the housing waiting list.

Boston, Massachusetts: 915 people on the waitlist.

Florida: Section 8 voucher waiting lists are increasing and Ryan White Part A short term rental assistance is decreasing.

Honolulu, Hawaii: 52 people on the waitlist.

Chicago, Illinois: 10,257 households experiencing unmet need.

Iowa: 38 households reported as having unmet need.

New Orleans, Louisiana: 22,000 people on the Section 8 waiting list, which has not been open in 3 years.

New York, New York: 3,100 persons in need of housing assistance. Black men represent the largest percentage of the population experiencing housing need.

Portland, Maine: 99 individuals and families on the waitlist with an estimated wait time of 2 years.

El Paso, Texas: 111 people on the waiting list with many more people who don't add their name to the list feeling that it is a "hopeless situation."

San Francisco, CA: Housing is the #1 unmet need of the HIV population. There are at least 2,100 homeless LGBTQ San Franciscans.

 

PARIS FROM HOMELESS PHOTOGRAPHERS POINT OF VIEW

NY TIMES - HOMELESS PHOTOGRAPHERS PRIDE OF PLACE IN PARIS   by ALISSA J. RUBIN

EXCERPTS:

What is unusual is that, thanks to a quintessentially French set of crosscutting interests, the photographers are homeless men and women who were given cameras and technical guidance by a charity. Their portrait of Paris is surprisingly beautiful, touched less by the artists’ painful circumstances than by a longing for respite from bleak lives.

 

“It’s the negative and the positive,” said Lorenzo, 55, one of the photographers, who, like most of those interviewed, declined to give his last name.  ...

 

The photography project was the brainchild of Elisabeth Tiberghien, a retired professor who decided to act on a long-running desire to help the homeless. First she volunteered at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a Roman Catholic lay charity that is dedicated to aiding the poor, and then she started an organization of her own, called Deuxième Marche, or Second Step. She corralled friends and acquaintances to serve on her board and opened a small storefront from which the group has so far helped 150 people get off the street and into subsidized housing.

...

 

With help from a board member, she teamed up with Wipplay.com, a website for photography that, in collaboration with Olympus, agreed to provide her with digital cameras, Olympus point-and-shoots, for homeless people who wanted to try taking pictures. She contacted those she worked with or knew through other organizations for the poor, and 15 men and women volunteered to take the cameras and shoot for a month. Only two did not finish the project.

***
Check out our previous post on Saint Vincent De Paul Society, by running a search within this blog!

BUTTERFLIES ON BLUE