Waking up this morning was waking up to more news of more tragedies due to tornadoes across the United States, devastating communities in 7 states. A sad repeat of 2011. It was a beautiful morning, spring truly may be close to us. I can't say that I am not looking forward to warm weather.
Follow @DeniseBundyLiving on someone else's property, homeless, makes you vulnerable. Especially when the owner is 89 years old. When the money ran out I had the same work load without a small pay throwing me into a financial quagmire. Yesterday all focus went onto my dog. It was "get rid of it or else." What has the dog one? Absolutely nothing. She is well manners, incredibly loyal and very devoted.
The problem is her breed. She is a pit bull terrier.
In order to bring chaos, where there was no chaos, my ex-boss claimed that on Tuesday 28th of February 2012 a woman in Gallop, New Mexico was attacked by a pit bull terrier and dog ripped off her leg and one arm.
I came to the computer to see this horrendous story - but could find nothing. Knowing the tall tales he is apt to make up I called him on it, and asked to know which news source had given him that information. He insisted that he was telling the truth even when caught in a lie. But it was time to embroider the story more. Now he claimed that Gracie followed him on his Polaris.
Not until late last night did it dawn on me that Gracie had not even been out while he was riding his Polaris. He has ridden it once in 6 months, and the one day he rode it neither I nor Gracie was even here.
THIS is homelessness. THIS is being displaced.
I went to Lawrence Brothers pharmacy, to the employee's who had kept saying that they really wanted Gracie, and told them that I was being forced to find her her another home solely based upon her breed.One phoned me last night and we arranged for her to take Gracie home for a visit for a few hours to see if she would get along with her dog. But this is really ripping my heart out of my chest, and it's adding stress in a situation already excruciatingly stressful.
Early this morning I spoke to my ex-boss and told that it was wrong to manipulate people this way but the reaction was as expected. "If you don't get rid of that pit bull I will raise hell."
The reality here is that I could argue and I could refuse to let Gracie go. That would be an option, seeing as there have been no complaints until now and no reason that has any merit at all. And I have only been given a month to relocate anyway.
But this scenario is only too familiar to homeless people who suddenly find themselves at the whim and will of some fairly cold hearted people. For myself it's a dog. What about those with children?
Tanya McDowell, Homeless Connecticut Mom, Pleads Guilty In School Residency CaseBut this isn't the only such case in the United States. Did I hear "Land of the Free" when I said that?
NORWALK, Conn. -- A Connecticut woman who was homeless has pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her son in the wrong school district.Tonya McDowell entered her plea Wednesday in Norwalk Superior Court under the Alford Doctrine, meaning she doesn't admit guilt but concedes the state has enough evidence to convict her.
She also pleaded guilty to selling narcotics. She faces about five years in prison at sentencing.
McDowell was homeless when she was charged with felony larceny last year. Authorities allege she used a babysitter's address to enroll her son in kindergarten in Norwalk instead of Bridgeport, her last permanent address.
Her case drew national attention and support from civil rights leaders.
The Hearst Connecticut Media Group reports her lawyer says she insists she's not guilty. Lawyer Darnell Crosland says people "shouldn't be arrested for stealing a free education."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/conn-mom-pleads-guilty-in_n_1296406.html
Across the country, children are being kicked out of school when they become homeless.It’s not something you hear talked about much. Maybe that’s because homelessness in general is ignored in our public discourse. This may even be the first time you’re hearing about it.
Under federal law, children have the right to remain in the same school when they become homeless. Schools are also required to provide free transportation, meals, and access to extra-curricular activities. This provides vital stability when the rest of their lives have been turned upside down.
Unfortunately, a lot of schools either don’t know about or simply ignore their obligations to homeless children. That’s why we’ve launched Project LEARN, a cutting-edge initiative to keep these kids in the classroom. We’re working with attorneys from across the country to provide legal advocacy to homeless families and train school officials to follow the law.
I can’t stress how important this is. Studies show that kids who are forced to repeatedly change schools are 50 percent less likely to graduate high school. Worse, people who don’t graduate are more than twice as likely to slip into poverty in a single year, and live 9.2 years fewer on average.
Think about that: kicking a homeless child out of school may result in them dying almost ten years either than other kids. Are we really going to let that happen?
You can help. By becoming a member of Project LEARN, you’ll be giving a helping hand to the more than one million homeless children in America.
They’re dreaming of tomorrow, but they need your help today. Lawyers Education Access Resource Network: http://homelessnesslaw.org/2012/03/homeless-children-shouldnt-be-kicked-out-of-school/
I want to go home. I want to go to my own front door and live my own life with the freedoms all human beings desire. I want to be able to see my mother and have the family reunited. I am tired of being manipulated because I am homeless and I am tired of being vulnerable because I am homeless. I am tired of being told to move everything I own at the drop of a hat.. when those who tell me to move it know that not only am I incapable of lifting weights that take 2 men, but I have nowhere to put it. I am sick and tired of being forced to support a convicted felon!
Before noon I contacted a local artist to see if she would do a watercolor suitable for printing, but reached her answering machine. The ad. I placed in the Ruidoso News has received not one response, the job applications received not one response, and my nerves are frayed.
I would like 2012 turn into the year when I can get electricity and a house onto our land.. when I can get my life back, but Lord I don't know how to do that in this economic climate.
Introducing "Breakdown: Americans on the Edge"By mid afternoon the high winds started up.. winds that will go across the US and could possibly cause more tornadoes.. praying for a miracle.We live in the world's richest country, a cornucopia brimming with spacious, warm homes; supermarkets stuffed with food; educational opportunities; cradles of innovation; a dizzying cascade of techno-gadgets, mobile devices, and flat-panel TVs; tank-sized cars and luxury resorts; the promise of shopping sprees or dinners-out looped endlessly before us in commercials and on billboards -- and, of course, piles and piles of money.
Despite the economic upheaval of the last several years, America still sits atop a $14.5 trillion economy. China, our closest competitor, tops out at around $6 trillion, with Japan posting relatively similar numbers in third place. Once you move past Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Italy, every other country is but an economic whisper compared to the United States.
Piles and piles of money.
Yet we are home to a middle class confronting the erosion of several decades of financial and social gains and a deeply entrenched population of impoverished Americans cursed with diminished opportunities, diminished ways of escape, and diminished expectations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82B0RSwcl2g&feature=youtu.be
"The slum is the measure of civilization," noted Jacob Riis, the Danish journalist who began chronicling urban poverty more than 120 years ago. In that context, history and progress for the poorest Americans can seem frozen, and our own modern-day claims that we are fostering a civil society are built on sand.
Today, The Huffington Post is launching a year-long exploration and examination of the lives of middle class and poor Americans in a series called "Breakdown: Americans on the Edge." We'll have about two dozen reporters and editors dedicated to this subject and they'll cover as many facets of this problem as they can -- from health care, education, suburban strife, and the withering social safety net to the special plight of children and the violence and tumult of the world that engulfs those who have been poor for generations.
What ends up in play in this tragedy -- and it's a tragedy that our politicians and our business leaders have turned away from so far during this election year -- are the needs, aspirations and contributions of a broad swath of our fellow citizens.
"This ain't a healthy life," Brooklyn Davis, an impoverished resident of Pittsburgh, tells Tom Zeller, Jr. in a piece we published today. "I feel like I'm stuck, like I can't breathe, like I'm in quicksand."
In an authoritative and sweeping portrait of a small group of Pittsburgh residents who occupy the lowest economic rung in our society, Zeller teases out the human costs behind the stark metrics that define the lives of the poor.
As Zeller points out: "Last fall, the U.S. Census Bureau revealed a troubling statistic: A full 6.7 percent of Americans, or roughly 20.5 million people, were earning less than half the official poverty rate -- a category generally known as "extreme poverty." For a family of four, including two dependent children, that would amount to an annual income of about $11,000 or less."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR1VM4eO-iA&feature=youtu.be
Those figures are criticized on the right for overlooking public subsidies the poor receive and on the left for overlooking all of the onerous household and medical expenses the poor have to take on simply because they're poor. Still, regardless of how the numbers are blended, parsed or debated, there are about 17 million Americans living in conditions that most people would describe as desperately poor.
For many of these people, an extra $50 or so a month can make or break them. It means, for example, that they can't afford Internet service in their homes, an obstacle to communication and an obstacle to applying for a job. As Gerry Smith notes in his coverage of the digital divide today, about 80% of Fortune 500 companies now only accept job applications online, so if you're not wired you're left behind.
"It's just so exhausting because I use the Internet all the time," says Jillian Maldonado, a 29-year-old single mother whom Smith profiles today and who can't afford to pay for an online connection in her apartment. "I'm always back and forth to the library. Some days, I feel completely defeated."
The economic wheel turns in insidious ways and in unexpected places these days, including such unlikely spots as Silicon Valley. Peter Goodman spent a week with residents of a homeless shelter in Redwood City, California, some of whom once enjoyed fat salaries and bright prospects working in proximity to the country's showcase for high-tech opportunity and affluence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyGrrUg0gIs&feature=youtu.be
"Cities still have rates of poverty nearly double those found in suburban areas," Goodman tells us. "But the number of officially poor people living in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas increased by 53 percent between 2000 and 2010, as compared to a rise of 23 percent among city residents."
Those mired in this slide are, Goodman says, "part of one fabric, united by the knowledge of what it means to lose one's way so fully that basic expectations about life -- its risks and its rewards -- are rendered essentially inoperative."
If the slum -- and the rural hovel and the suburban homeless shelter -- are the measures of civilization, then it's a challenge to all of us in this election year and beyond to reconsider why slums persist amid the economic splendor and bounty that have also defined the American moment. Follow Timothy L. O'Brien on Twitter:,www.twitter.com/timobrien
There has to be someone related to Robert & Sylve Huckins must have some means to reach them, if it be Michael Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie ( Diana Huckins? Dominic Huckins? Malcolm Huckins? ) or Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins and get them to return ALL of the money they stole from us so that I can buy a home and get our lives back. I am begging anyone in this family for help.I don't believe I have EVER witnessed any none violent crime that can be as devastating as stealing someone's home. I am walking in Dorothy McKeevers footsteps, day by day, month by month, year by year.
Liam Griffin, I sat in your law office with two witnesses as you gave me your promise, your guarantee, that our money would be returned before harm came to us.
Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins you were present the day I signed contract with your son. You walked out of the kitchen with Sylve Huckins and your son introduced me to you. He told you that I was the British horse trainer he had told you about, the one he was going to build the home and barn for. Why didn't you say something? There may be a rational and reasonable explanation but I have spent over 3 years, homeless, not understanding it. I understand it even less knowing that though I was a total stranger, both Dorothy McKeever and Sally Canning you KNEW, and you knew what your son had done to them and others.
Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, I contacted you and simply asked for a reference, not knowing that Robert Huckins was your cousin. Robert Huckins had just stolen over $30,000 from the domestic violence shelter, HEAL, yet everyone was trying to hide it. There was a history of stealing large amounts of money. $65,000 PLUS from Nancy Canning. $89,000 PLUS from Dorothy McKeever, $45,000 from Francis McKinney. The list just goes on and on and on.
Because of Robert Huckins I ended up paying $140,000 to be homeless.. sat in the cold, emotionally, physically and financially broke. In the middle of a recession, with no way to recover the stolen funds.
Today Robert Huckins has his own home...
He also has OUR home.....
He also has a lot of people's money...
And his freedom.
Women are not banks or loan institutions. Women should not be the source of a retirement fund for people who don't want to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Holding women hostage while playing with the judicial system, a horrendous game of cat and mouse extending YEARS, with the victims whose very homes, families and stability are in jeopardy is cruelty, as cruel as a physical beating. It is financial and emotional RAPE. Homelessness is not justice. It is a slow, painful death.
Please, I beg with everything I have within me, please convince Robert Huckins to stop this torture and return the building fund he stole from us so we too, can have a home.
Relevant pages:
http://roberthuckinsvictim.
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http://roberthuckinsvictim.blogspot.com/2011/12/white-nothing-but-white.html
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. ~Winston Churchill
