Sling Walking A Dog

CENSORED NEWS: Calling on Mother Earth, Prayers and Blockade Jan....

CENSORED NEWS: Calling on Mother Earth, Prayers and Blockade Jan....:   Dakota 38 Native Elders will ask for spiritual help on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013, at noon in Winnipeg and Minneapolis. In Winnipeg, A...

Housing. That's another kettle of fish. Being poor to some people has its benefits, but what the many who don't have to endure the endless red tape for the little things we get, are oblivious to the painful invasions of our privacy, even of things that have nothing to do with being poor and or the need we may have at the time; the sea of paper work; signatures until your fingers bleed; the sneers and ignorant hoity toity attitudes we get from the proud and dangerous of all walks of life including the case workers themselves; the anarchy of the general public, being subjected to their dictation of how we should live, and if we fail to abide by their guidelines we are then harassed by visits from child welfare, false reports to public welfare agencies of all departments, ie...Social Security, Public Aid, even Animal Welfare if you have a pet. Most people see the poor as uneducated nymphs from some unnamed planet of another galaxy. Well, enough of this rant.
I have whats called a housing voucher. Its a program that assists in paying rent for people who otherwise wouldn't be able to cover their rental obligations and verily, verily would probably live like nomads, moving from place to place, either because they were smart and knew they couldn't pay the next months rent and moved out before they could be evicted, or simply because they were evicted because they wanted to exhaust all available time they had going through the court system.
Anyhow, I have this lovely voucher, but forever have problems locating rentals. Most Landlords don't accept them. But, it is now illegal in the City of Chicago for a Landlord to turn down a Housing Voucher formally know by most people as "Section 8". Its under descrinination, and say its discriminating a persons source of income, and rightfully so. But, then I have to go to the defense of some landlords who have had horrid experiences in spite of the new background checks Housing performs on all Voucher Holders now; from unruly and unappreciative recipients who find destruction of someones property satisfying. People like that make all Voucher holders look bad and makes our lives harder.

My Mentally ill niece, wow, that's a story and a half.
I found my niece a few years ago when I briefly worked at the City Transit Company. She was working in the Human Resource Office. She is the oldest daughter to my oldest sister Kathy and her husband Roy. Her name is Susan, and at this time she is about 38, and is raising a little 7 year old boy. We'll just call him De.
Almost 2 years ago her an I began communications back and forth. Susan is the family out caste at this time. As I write you will understand why.
I was trying to establish a bond with her the best way I knew how. She seemed like she was interested and seemed she wanted family in her life, so I allowed myself to be that person.
I had a hard life, and I knew she did, so I wanted to be someone she could relate to and understand her.
All was good for a while, then I got this phone call. It was her telling me Derrick (her husband) just tried to strangle her to death. So I went into survivors mode, and told her I will be there to move her, her son and her little dog in with me. So she got a few friends to help out, and I grabbed a few people, and my sweet cousin Gretchen from Missouri came all the way to Chicago to help out. We filled up a few truckloads, and took them to a storage unit, and then the last one went to my house with them.
One of the helpers she got was a male friend she used to see before she married Derrick. His name was Chuck. Weeks went by and before I knew it Chuck was partially living there too.
Chuck seemed to have been helping Susan a lot, so I allowed him to stay in the house with her.
Over time, I felt things changing but I couldn't put my fingers on it.
In just a few months, she slowly moved her things into Chucks house without telling me of course, that should have been a red flag, but I totally missed that. But, it wasn't the end of this saga.
Only a couple weeks go by after she left, I get a phone call. "Auntie, he has locked me in the house and won't give me a key, and the Landlord wants me out.....Oh, Auntie he is over here threatening me, He picked up my dog and took him outside, and I think he is going to kill him", she went on. I told her she needs to call the police, but then she said "Auntie, he is the police", so then I told her to call and demand to speak to his supervisor.
She followed my advice, the police came, and realized who the offender was, and according to Susan, they seemed to have some sort of grudge against him though they should have arrested him for home invasion, intimidation, and abuse of his authority, I could actually come up with more charges but he wasn't.
So I was off again running to her rescue, but this time it was just me, my 14 year old daughter, her 6 year old son (at the time), and her 28 year old hype best friend Adriane who was 105 pounds soaking wet. I told her that day I wasn't going to do this a third time, so she better make up her mind.
We ended up back at my house, where she decided to stay. Soon after this, I began having problems with my daughter. From drinking to running away from home. She finally ran away and didn't come back.
Months went by, we learned while Chuck was coming around he was stealing from my house. He got 2 bikes that we know of, and a few other things including missing money.
Susan would time to time go on dates, which I thought was normal. She pronounced her mental illness during her stay. She would make sure it was understood that she was.
She began down the trail of getting on disability. I helped her out a little. I was even her payee for a short stint. I didn't want the responsibility, I had a hard enough time trying to handle my disability.
She had altogether about 3 major settlements come in during her time at my house. Mind you at no time did she offer to cover that gas bill so if nothing else her own son had normal heat and cooked food. She didn't care, she went and got space heaters so she could run up my electric instead. I know she didn't create the bill, but I thought the idea was to help out each other, but it was always all about her. She would even tell me she can't worry about anyone else problems, she had enough of her own. To prove a point, when my daughter left home, not one time did she ask me how is she. She only asked where she was. I told her, and after that, she never brought it up again.
She lived in my living room with her son and her little dog. I rarely went in there, it was almost like I lived in a small little corner of the house.
I had no TV, just my computer and my cell phone.
Finally the day came and my youngest son who is also staying here, had enough, and made her so uncomfortable, she finally left. Of course she snuck out no telling anyone. She hasn't yet revealed where she went. She claims she went to a shelter, but I doubt it. Her son told my son she was seeing Derrick again, but she denies it, but I noticed she took all that blond she was so adamant on having, that Derrick hated out of her hair. I am guessing she is back with him, and guess what, I won't be there for another rescue, may God forgive me, but I did it twice. Yes, it will break my heart if he does something to her, but for one thing she will be too far away for me to get her, and secondly, I am just not healthy enough to do it, and I am not putting any more people at risk, especially my own kids. Domestic Violence is serious, and I am not trying to get myself or anyone else hurt. She has a mother and a father and 3 brothers, she can call them.
This is just a brief story about her. Much wasn't mentioned cause it would just go on and on.
So, with that said, I'll move on to the next topic next time.

Let me explain the Gas situation first here since it was the first one I mentioned.
When I moved to this apartment, I thought I had an awesome Landlady. Her name was Roseland Fernandez. She appeared kind and understanding. All was well until I started getting Gas bills. A hundred here a hundred there. Doesn't sound too steep. But that was pushing the limits to my income, not to mention the electric bill. It was a struggle to keep up with both.
The gas bill begins to rise as the seasons changed, and the gas company would raise it higher and higher every year, but early on it got too difficult. I had to choose food over gas, or electric over gas, school clothes over gas, school supplies over gas, and it just started to roll out of control. Before I know it, the bill was so high, I couldn't touch it, and the man that was living with me wouldn't help at all. he only concerned himself with the electric bill, because his name was on it.
Time passed and it just kept mounting up. I took it to IHEAP for help, well because it was still on, they would only pay a small amount, which didn't help at all. My income couldn't handle it. Mind you I was on a fixed income most of the time. though I did work, it was remedial and didn't pay nothing.
A year 2 years ago, they came and shut it off. I thought that was great, now IHEAP will help, so I ran to IHEAP, filled out the paperwork, when I got home the people who lived in the basement apartment, and broke off the seal on the meter thinking they were doing me a favor.
Needless to say, I was livid, but I didn't show it, cause the damage was done. The gas company had to tell IHEAP there was gas at my house so I didn't get any help.
So time passed, and Tanja, the woman in the basement called me downstairs to show me something. She showed me how the Landlady had the gaslines rigged so I would be paying for the dryer she had down there that I wasn't even allowed to use, and when they shut off the gas, there was no heat for the dryer. So that tells you I was paying for building functions I didn't have access to.
Because the meter was in the basement, it was difficult for the gas company to get to it, even to read it.
So, one day, they showed up a year later and there was new people renting the basement portion, they let them in and they took the meter. Then guess what happened, no one had hot water to bath in. So, Malkum, the man who now lived on the first floor and rents the basement and Garage, is a building contractor, he then rigged it so the building got hot water on his water tank instead.
Don't ask me why she had 2 hot water tanks but the whole building was using only one. That puzzled me too.
I do know that I was also heating the basement as well.
So in this building there were 2 legal apartments, and one illegal apartment.
But anyway, by the time they took the meters the bill was ridiculasly high. So I took it back to IHEAP/CEDA. The lady who was filling out the paper work insisted I bring in the Electric bill. I expalined to her its not in my name, she said that was fine, but I told her I know it isn't. She demanded I bring it in so they can take care of both bills. Not surpizing when I called to check up on the status, I got someone who was lets say sort of dense, and called me by my boyfriends last name. I told him I wasn't married to him, and he kept asking me if I was Regina Ramirez, and I was like "What?" I just told him who I was, and I never signed that as my name, but he was stuck on that.
So now I am here a year later, sitting without Gas to cook with, or heat my apartment.
My Lawyer was supposed to help me with it. But got caught up with trying to save my Housing Voucher. Well, that's another post. Needless to say, he never took care of it.
I'll explain more later.

Its been a while since I had posted, so I will try my best to catch up here.
Since that October post, a lot has happened.
I went through hell I will say. October and December brought things to a peek.
In November EMT's found my daughter faced down in the dirt, intoxicated, 300 times the legal limit. That day she had run off. She asked if she could go hang out with friends, I was hesitant. I told her to be back soon, cause I was making supper. She left, and I hadn't heard from her for hours. I had an urge to go see her girlfriend Irene. So I went to her house. I had to speak through her brother to speak to her mother. Her English was poor. Irene is hispanic.
Well according to her mother and brother my daughter wasn't with Irene. but, Irene wasn't there either. She was gone all night long.
The next day, I got a phone call and there was a woman on the other end. She asked who I was, and that moment I was already putting on my shoes and had my car keys in my hand before she finished telling me what hospital she was calling from, because I just knew. I was already in my car when she told me they had my daughter in their Emergency Department.
When I got there her face was beyond recognition. He hands showed very little injury, which was why the Chicago police refused to investigate, because they said they showed no defensive wounds. Well, if her arms are held behind her back there wont be any. Anyway, just to rule it out a made them do a full rape kit on her, and it came back negative, so we know she wasn't raped, thank God. But, it doesn't rule out a gangbang beating. Cowardly bitches (Irene and her whorish friends), who had a jealously complex cause they are all ugly thought they were big an bad to hold someone down while they beat on her. This bitch don't know how bad I wanna hurt her. But, my daughter asked me not to.
Well, the best thing they came out of that was My daughter didn't look back, and disassociated herself from that dogpack.
But, now she is living with her Aunt, who isn't the best influence, for more then one reason.
1) I have no Gas for several months prior, because the gas bill was too high for my income.
2) My mentally ill niece was living in our small apartment cause her husband tried to kill her, and she had with her her six your old mentally ill son, and their dog.
3) I don't want her having contact with Irene and company.
4) She is there waiting for me to find an apartment.

This will be continued.

George Harrison My Sweet Lord

An awesome Song from the late 60s and early 70s. My Sweet Lord.