Last night was a long and hard night. A migraine appeared while feeding that turned into a horror lasting most of the night. No matter how much I tried to get warm and sleep, sleep wouldn't come.I woke up later than usual, around 8.15 am, cold, damp and feeling blessed that I got any sleep at all.
I found Equine.com on *twitter, ( now that I have stopped calling it *tweeter,) and I phoned Jan to discuss methods of marketing these young hunter-jumper, dressage and 3 day event prospects via that media.
The economic instability is so bad that prospects so nice that they would have sold themselves on athletic merit alone 5 years ago, are not selling. There simply isn't any money being spent. So we have to investigate any avenue possible.
All the hopes, dreams and aspirations to open a riding program were shattered with the Huckins fiasco. Today I'm not even sure that I have the health nor the energy to accomplish what would have been fairly simplistic 4 years ago.
This was a very busy day without much time to stop, but when I came into this shed at 6.30 pm it had dropped to the 50's outside and was way below the 30's inside. I became so cold so fast.. really cold... and can't help but wonder how tonight is going to be.
One of the homeless advocates on Twitter posted a comment that started me thinking. The comment was, "Not enough people talk about loneliness being a key issue in social welfare and homelessness."In another blog entry perhaps a year ago I actually talk about this very subject.
One of the reasons for the loneliness may be the separation that happens when fact meets fiction. A person with a home cannot quite understand how a person cannot have a home. Obtaining one seems so simplistic. But it rarely is.
So the responses vary, yet are repeated over and over again. Over simplification. The "why can't you" argument is really frustrating.
"Well, why can't you rent?"
When stuck in the middle of a recession, with income potential growing more
precarious by the day, paying $12,000-$24,000 or perhaps more per year to rent a home and facility really isn't feasible. If I could earn enough to cover $12,000 to $24,000 a year for rent I would have purchased a modular by now and placed it on the land we own. The reality that you can't even find horse facilities to "rent" isn't a debate I desire to get into."Why can't you live with your children?"
The fact that they don't live in the same location as where I work, and there is no work where they live is instrumental.. but how one fits 7 human beings, plus a menagerie of pets, into a very small 3 bedroom home isn't something one can ignore.
"Why do you have pets?"
Why shouldn't I have pets is the real question. I am not homeless by design. I am homeless because a convicted felon refuses to give us our building fund back. The convicted felon has pets and can clearly pay veterinary bills for those pets. So why should I get rid of my long time pets because of his action, have I not paid enough in damages?
I can't say that everyone experiences this. This is my personal experience.
Ironically a member of an on-line Christian forum lost her home at the very same time as our building fund was stolen. She had leased this house for over 20 years. But had never had the opportunity to buy it.When the owner gave her the opportunity to buy the property she kept applying for mortgage loans, and kept getting rejected. Up until the 12th hour she fought valiantly and found her self homeless.
She is close to 60 yr old, living on disability, with no vehicle. Her only other income is a meager amount from a small mall store she owns.
I stepped in the gap thinking that if I could come up with the first months rent and cleaning deposit on an apartment, everyone donate a small amount, it would give her a new beginning. But it became an exercise in frustration and I heard "why can't she" more times than I dare remember. This was mid-winter with deep snow, and the weeks dragged into months without a resolve. I made over 100 contacts and I was so frustrated I wrote a letter to the editor in the town she resided.
Why can't she move in with family?
Her only relatives lived in a 12 ft RV with two small children.
Why can't she relocate?
Her business, her life, was in Washington State. If she couldn't afford the 2008 rental fee's for an apartment how on earth could she afford to move to another state?
These are my only experiences with homelessness, and I could be 100% wrong. But if it's standard practice to interrogate the homeless with "why can't they" I'm not surprised that the homeless become isolated and shy away from the general population... and experience the worst kind of loneliness any human can have thrust upon them.
Again, I am only drawing on personal experience. It's very easy to get kicked down. Getting back up again is never as easy as it sounds.
The only thing left for me to do is to plead to the family members of Robert Huckins to intervene. If that be Michael Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie ( Diana Huckins? Dominic Huckins? Malcolm Huckins? ) or Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins. If you would be caring enough, and humane enough to do so, please make your brother, son, cousin return the entire building fund he stole from us so that I can buy a home. I simply can't go on homeless. It is already September 2011 and my nerves are in shambles after over 3 years of hell, that should never have been allowed. I am devastated at the loss of my mother, my career, my home and all I want is what we have paid honest money for - and I beg for your mercy.Today Robert Huckins has his own home...
He also has OUR home.....
He also has a lot of people's money...
And his freedom.
No women should be abused to this degree. I am homeless and I want to see my mum and return to my career, so I won't stop asking if I have to ask every single day until I die. Robert Huckins gave no-one an alternative, so I plead with sincerity for your mercy and intervention.
Once the game is over, the king & the pawn go back in the same box. ~Italian Proverb
