Demovictory9
Demovictory9's JournalThe 'Hidden' Crisis of Rural Homelessness
After serving a two-year sentence for methamphetamine possession, Holly Phelps had nowhere safe to live. Phelps found a job working at a laundromat in Marion, Illinois, but she couldn’t earn enough to rent a place for herself and her daughters, then 11 and 12 years old. Her ex-husband was gone. Her mother lived an hour away, but was struggling with alcoholism, so it wasn’t a stable home for Phelps and her daughters.
“I had no healthy place to go. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I was keeping my stuff in a shed, going all over the place—and no one understood what I was going through,” she said.
Phelps spent more than two years bouncing from place to place, before the Southern Illinois Coalition for the Homeless (SICHome), an advocacy group that serves rural counties, helped Phelps find a rent-subsidized apartment in Marion, where she and her daughters now live.
For those two years, Phelps and her two children had no dependable, secure shelter. But since she wasn’t sleeping on the street or in a shelter, she didn’t meet the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of “homelessness,” and therefore wasn’t eligible for any emergency-shelter grants. She and others in rural areas make up what advocates and social workers call “the hidden homeless”—individuals and families who don’t have permanent housing but aren’t sleeping rough in a big city. Compared to the urban homeless, this population has less access to shelters and supportive services and are rarely counted, making them all but invisible to policymakers. A new study from the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness (ICPH) suggests that while the federal government has reduced homelessness in many urban areas, the crisis of the hidden homeless in rural America is getting worse.
“When people think of homelessness, they think of a person sleeping on the street in a major city,” said Angie Lyon, program coordinator at Hancock Hope House, a shelter serving four rural counties in central Indiana. “But the reality is more complicated. We have people who are bouncing from couch to couch, who live in their car, who live in motels—but in general they have fewer places to go and fewer people trying to help them.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/rural-homelessness-housing/
The Republican campaign to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients is working as expected.
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Elizabeth Cloinger, 47, who lives in a trailer next to her cousin’s house just outside town, thought she was complying with the new rules. She has been on Medicaid for years and already had a job, working seven days most weeks as a home health aide. Her wages — 9.25 an hour, with 50 cents more for hospice patients — and her hours met the new rules. Yet she received a June letter saying she needed to verify that her income made her eligible, or she would be cut off.
She called the listed phone number and faxed information to a state employee in Pine Bluff. She was told that, like many people, she was exempt from the work requirements — in her case, because she was caring for her 20-year-old daughter recovering from a car accident and her 3-year-old granddaughter.
But on Aug. 18, she received another letter, saying she had been terminated because she had not verified her income. In December, four letters arrived saying she needed to update her email address, then 11 more in January. Each letter told her to create an online account. She doesn’t have a computer and didn’t realize that the program requires everyone to get an email address. This winter, she applied to get her insurance back and is still waiting for an answer. Statewide, about 1,900 of the 18,000 people cut off last year have regained coverage since January, when they could reapply. The state does not keep track of how many reapplied and were denied.
Being poor in this country is not only cruel and degrading, it's also been made insanely complicated. All of these qualities are deliberately created hardships courtesy of a political class for whom poverty is barely an issue any more. Poor people are always an issue, though. They're stealing Your Money and spending it on T-bones and Cadillacs. Poor people are convenient scapegoats. It's only poverty that's inconvenient.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a26964879/medicaid-work-requirements-arkansas-republicans/
Trump Fed pick was held in contempt for failing to pay ex-wife over $300,000
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/30/trump-stephen-moore-federal-reserve-boardTrump Fed pick was held in contempt for failing to pay ex-wife over $300,000
Records obtained by Guardian show Stephen Moore reprimanded by judge for not paying alimony, child support and other debts
Stephen Moore owes $75,000 in taxes, IRS alleges
Stephen Moore, the economics commentator chosen by Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, was found in contempt of court after failing to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony, child support and other debts.
Trump’s Federal Reserve pick owes $75,000 in taxes, US government alleges
Court records in Virginia obtained by the Guardian show Moore, 59, was reprimanded by a judge in November 2012 for failing to pay Allison Moore more than $300,000 in spousal support, child support and money owed under their divorce settlement.
Moore continued failing to pay, according to the court filings, prompting the judge to order the sale of his house to satisfy the debt in 2013. But this process was halted by his ex-wife after Moore paid her about two-thirds of what he owed, the filings say.
In a divorce filing in August 2010, Moore was accused of inflicting “emotional and psychological abuse” on his ex-wife during their 20-year marriage. Allison Moore said in the filing she had been forced to flee their home to protect herself. She was granted a divorce in May 2011.
Moore said in a court filing signed in April 2011 he admitted all the allegations in Allison Moore’s divorce complaint. He declined to comment for this article.
Donald Trump Jr. Sensationally Self-Owns With Pulitzer Gaffe Worthy Of Own Prize
Donald Trump Jr. Sensationally Self-Owns With Pulitzer Gaffe Worthy Of Own Prize
Twitter users, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, pounced on the president’s son over his latest ill-thought-out post.
Josh Dawsey
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@jdawsey1
Not a single prize-winning story had a substantive correction.
Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
So funny that The New York Times & The Washington Post got a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage (100% NEGATIVE and FAKE!) of Collusion with Russia - And there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt? In any event, their prizes should be taken away by the Committee!
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4:26 PM - Mar 29, 2019
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Donald Trump Jr.
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@DonaldJTrumpJr
He’s right... unless they give Pulitzer’s for fiction. #fakenews
“He’s right… unless they give Pulitzer’s for fiction,” wrote Trump Jr., who in recent days has teased the idea of a future run for office and has caught heat for giving an interview to a far-right conspiracy theory-peddling website which has previously called former President Barack Obama “a demon from hell.”
Of course, there is a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And Twitter users ― including Vietnamese American author Viet Thanh Nguyen, who won the prize in 2016 for The Sympathizer ― were quick to point it out:
instragram model gets gets 4 years probation for stomping puppy (puppy ok)
https://nypost.com/video/social-media-monster-gets-a-slap-on-the-wrist-after-kicking-puppy/Instagram model Keevonna C’Ante Wilson accepted a plea deal after being charged with felony animal abuse in Aventura, Florida. Despite the fact that 2017 security camera footage allegedly shows her kicking and stomping on a small dog, she will only have to pay less than $600 in fines and serve four years’ probation.
"Seattle is dying"
sweaty crazy talking Trump at the MAGA rally today
https://twitter.com/Kokomothegreat/status/1111493004060172289'We're human beings!' the homeless woman yelled. 'Acknowledge us!' Then people did --
‘We’re human beings!’ the homeless woman yelled. ‘Acknowledge us!’ Then people did — in a way she didn’t expect.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/were-human-beings-the-homeless-woman-yelled-acknowledge-us-then-people-did--in-a-way-she-didnt-expect/2019/03/28/64131000-50b5-11e9-8d28-f5149e5a2fda_story.html?utm_term=.c471415fdb8d
When The Washington Post published a profile Friday of Monica Diaz, a fast-food restaurant employee simultaneously navigating the homeless and working worlds, Howard University law student Gabriela Sevilla immediately got to work.
She organized efforts to assist Diaz and her husband, Pete Etheridge, launching a GoFundMe campaign that started out small — but rapidly grew — and committing hours every day to getting them off the streets. Within a week, the fund raised more than $22,000, and the couple that Sevilla set out to help are on the verge of housing, either through a city program or by finding an apartment on their own.
Sevilla, a 25-year-old intern with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, first met Diaz and Etheridge on Feb. 28. It was the day of an encampment cleanup — biweekly sweeps that city officials say are necessary to keep the streets safe, but which homeless advocates say are dehumanizing and can strip the homeless of what little they have. Diaz, who’d just undergone another sleepless night, was frantic. She was begging for help and attention.
“We’re human beings!” she yelled. “Please, just acknowledge us!”
Sevilla, who was attending the cleanup as a legal observer, spoke with Diaz for a long while that day, and after she left, she couldn’t stop thinking about her. Here was a woman just like her — a Latina raised by immigrants, who’d never had much in her life. Sevilla knew what it was like to get evicted and to feel untethered from family. In an alternative reality, Sevilla realized, their roles could easily have been swapped, with her in the tent and Diaz peering in from the outside.
Mystery solved. Garfield phones appearing on beach for 30 years
Spare parts of plastic 'Garfield' phones are displayed on the beach on March 28, 2019 in Plouarzel, western France, after being collected from a sea cave by environmental activists.
Orange, plastic and hungry for lasagna, his self-satisfied face was stuck in a permanent grin. Sometimes he came intact. Other times, he was in pieces or badly coated in grime.
"It never stops," one local said.
For 30 years, Garfield the cat novelty phones kept washing up on the beaches of France. A 15-mile stretch of beach near Brest saw nearly 200 phones and phone pieces wash in 2018 alone. Why, locals wondered, did Phone Garfield live in seemingly endless numbers off the coast of Brittany?
French environmentalists sought an answer, hoping to finally stop the relentless, if whimsical, pollution. An anti-littering group called Ar Vilantsou started a media blitz about the phones, which caught the attention of a local farmer. That man remembered a stormy day in the 1980s; from that day on, phones appeared on the beaches with some regularity.
The farmer contacted Ar Vilantsou and told about the incident. He also recalled, tucked away in some sea caves, a container that blew off the ship that day.
https://m.sfgate.com/weird/article/garfield-phones-france-beach-mystery-13724176.php
cops kick in door. Take toddler with fever
Guns drawn, police officers in tactical gear kicked down the door of the home after 1am and found their target: a 2-year-old boy thought to have a fever. It was "an abuse of power," Arizona Rep. Kelly Townsend tells KNXV of the scene in Chandler last month. The unvaccinated boy had a fever of 105 degrees when his mother visited a naturopathic doctor, who told her to take him to the emergency room, on Feb. 25, per ABC News. Sarah Beck says the fever subsequently broke, so the two instead returned home. When the doctor learned the boy hadn't been taken to the ER, she notified the Arizona Department of Child Safety, which contacted Chandler Police. Officers say the boy's parents refused to open their door for a welfare check around 10:30pm. They forcibly entered after DCS obtained a court order to seize the child due to a "possible life-threatening illness."
The boy was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, not meningitis as the doctor suspected, Townsend tells KNXV. "Parents felt the child was fine. Next thing we know, the Gestapo is at their door," she adds, per the Arizona Republic, noting the parents "may have been targeted by the medical community because they hadn't vaccinated their children." He and his two sisters, ages 4 and 6, are currently in the custody of their grandparents. The parents hope to regain custody at an April hearing. "To be bothered in the middle of the night by DCS was not something we were ready to tackle," they say in a statement. "Nobody, especially children, should have to go through what we are going through." It's been "a very traumatic experience."
http://www.newser.com/story/273157/cops-raid-arizona-home-take-sick-toddler-at-1am.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_top
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