Keep Working America, More handouts are needed!

Bishop · May 5, 2010

Picked up this story from a news link yesterday and this thoroughly pisses me off about personable responsibility. How could you possibly continue bringing kids into this world and not have a way to support them?! As the article states, this woman, who cannot keep her legs shut, is 'owed' something by everyone. Holy F-ing crap batman, this is as bad as octo-mom.

Here is part I and part II below that.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/21/211620/homeless-mother-15-says-she-needs-help-justice/

Tampa Bay Online said:

TAMPA - The din of room 168 at the Economy Inn on East Busch Boulevard occasionally drowned out conversation.

Twelve children ranging from teenagers to toddlers to infants spent the past week here, scrambling across the floor, bouncing on beds. With eyes filled with resignation on Wednesday morning, they were hungry and dirty and they wore the same clothes as the day before and the day before that.

Angel Adams, the mom, was asking for help, as the children rambled about the room. She was homeless and hopeless, she said. A relative paid for the motel room for a week, and after that, who knows. Her fiancé is in prison. Her 1-year-old is named John The Baptist Brown.

With measured indignation, Adams said somebody owes her.
By the end of the day, help had arrived.

Nick Cox, regional director of the Florida Department of Children and Families, paid Adams a visit and, standing outside the motel room with all 12 children present, offered a solution. He said there was room at A Kid's Place in Brandon, a cottage large enough to house a family of 12. Wary of the offer, Adams agreed.

The lifelong Tampa resident said she wants justice from the Hillsborough County sheriff's child protection team that took her kids away from her two years ago and from Hillsborough Kids Inc., which got her kids back six months ago.

"What do I do?" she said earlier in the day. "I have no answers. My family has been railroaded. Someone needs to pay.

"Nobody's helping me."

She remained distrustful of the system, she said. It was a system that despite all good intentions landed her in the motel, in this fix, in the first place.

Others would disagree, saying Adams is the cause of her own problems.
This morning, inside the dingy motel room, Adams handed out a list of her children's names and ages. Across the top: "Three fathers. One Mother. Fifteen Children."

Ten of the children, she said, were fathered by Garry Brown, currently serving a five-year prison term for dealing cocaine. A sampling of his kids' names: Garry Nesha, Garry Brown Jr., Garry Lethia, Garryiell and Garry Rick.
Cuban sandwiches and packaged noodles were donated during the motel stay. In the room, a microwave sat on top of a mini refrigerator. No stove. One sink, one toilet, one shower. Everyone walked barefoot over a grimy stained green carpet.

The smell of dirty diapers filled the room. Jerome, 11, gave Andrew, 6 months, a bottle. "This is not comfortable," Jerome said.
The baby coughed and spit up on Jerome's hand. He didn't flinch and patted the baby on the back.

"The girls sleep on one bed," Adams said. "The boys sleep on the other. I just crash on the floor."

The 12 kids are the youngest of 15 altogether, she said. Three have "aged out," meaning they have turned 18 and are on their own, no longer a part of the child welfare system.

"I can have as many as I want to," she said. All her kids, she added, "are gifts from God."

The 37-year-old mother doesn't work. "This is my work," she said gesturing toward the bunch. "I do this all by myself. I don't know what I'm going to do. This is a revolving door going nowhere."

She said her problems began two years ago when Brown was arrested and the money dried up. Right after that her children were taken away and put into foster care over allegations of neglect, she said.

Hillsborough Kids stepped in and took the case, eventually returning the children to her and Brown. Before Christmas, the couple took a two-bedroom apartment off North Boulevard near Columbus Drive.
Hillsborough Kids agreed to pay the $800 a month rent after caseworkers inspected the apartment and, though a bit cramped, said it was OK.
But the landlord, who evicted Adams in March, thought differently.
Sandy Chiellini said Adams showed up to sign the lease with Brown and one child. She didn't learn until later that there were 11 other children. There were problems with plumbing, downstairs tenants were flooded. There was noise, and occasional visits from police. Other tenants were complaining. Some left.

She said Adams' apartment was trashed. Clothes and food were scattered everywhere, screens were broken out. Chiellini began eviction proceedings. Adams failed to show up for two eviction hearings.

Chiellini said Adams and her children left last Thursday, taking only the clothes on their backs.

Cox said that opinions about Adams aside, the children are the main concern. He said clearly she loves the kids and they love her and the department does not want to split the family.

Lodging at A Kid's Place is temporary and department caseworkers will have to figure out how to place the Adams family in a permanent home. That's down the road, he said. For now, at least they are out of the hotel room.

"My children fear DCF," Adams told Cox outside the motel room Wednesday afternoon. "I do too."

"I want to make sure right now you and your kids are not living in a hotel room," he responded.

Still, Adams was hesitant. She wanted to know about the long term.
"I need money," she said. "I need transportation. My children need a place to live."

Hillsborough Kids spokesman Elaine Olszewski said her agency has been working with Adams for months and there is a system of support at work behind the scenes.

Case managers have been in constant contact with Adams, Olszewski said.
Typically, single moms in similar situations have frequent visits by case workers, who work with charities in the community and coordinate grant money to pay for services.

"It's on a case-by-case basis," she said. "It's not that we would financially support them, but we are connected to community partners that provide assistance."

The goal when children are removed from the home is to get them back with biological parents, she said, and caseworkers try to work to that end.
"Children always are better with their biological parents," she said. "Once we determine they are safe and everything is appropriate, there's a six-month period when they still are technically in the system. We continue to monitor the kids."

She said all the children of school age are enrolled and going to school, although Adams said they have not attended classes since she took up residence in the hotel. She said she can't get them to school.
"There's a lot of support out there," Olszewski said, "and we kind of direct them. She has the support from the community, churches and family members."
Click to expand...

Part II

Tampa Bay Online said:

Saying she did not wish to burden the taxpayers any longer, a circuit judge this morning released Angel Adams, the homeless mother of 12 dependent children who was jailed last week after refusing to tell the court whether she was pregnant for the 16th time in 21 years.

Adams, 37, appeared today before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan for the third time since Thursday. That's when the judge found Adams in contempt for refusing to testify and placed the 12 children in foster care.

Sheehan decided to release Adams without posing the pregnancy question.

"She has no interest in purging her contempt charge," Sheehan said, "and I have no interest in keeping her in jail."

The judge said that since Adams' 12 dependent children are in state custody, there is no concern about whom the mother associates with.

"She can get pregnant by another man if she so chooses," the judge said.

After the court's decision was announced, Adams said in open court she was not pregnant. Dressed in a baggy, orange jail jumpsuit and in handcuffs, Adams apologized to the judge and caseworkers trying to help her find a rent-subsidized house last week.

"My children have not been around any men aside from their father," she said. "I do want to apologize to you and say I'm sorry to everyone else in the room. Everyone went out of their way to get me a house."

Sheehan said the contempt citation stood, even though she ordered Adams' release.

"I, in no way, will reward you for your contemptuous behavior," the judge said, "apology or not."

Last week's hearing initially was called to update the judge on the housing situation for Adams. The judge retains jurisdiction over the family from a case two years ago, when Adams lost custody of her children because of neglect allegations. The children were returned to Adams six months ago, and Adams has had regular status hearings before Sheehan.

Hillsborough Kids Inc., the child-welfare agency assisting Adams, had worked for a week to secure Section 8 housing for her and the children. A six-bedroom, two-story home in Sulphur Springs was being prepared for them to live in rent free.

One of the requirements of the housing was the completion of a safety plan for the children in which Adams was to list everyone who would be coming into the home, including relatives and friends. She refused to give any names, saying she didn't want to lose the children if an unauthorized person visited.

She eventually gave the names of four relatives who would be frequent visitors. That was when Sheehan asked whether Adams was pregnant. The judge said if Adams was pregnant, then the name of that baby's father was not on the list. Adams refused to answer. Later, through her attorney, she said the question was too personal.

Adams' plight came to light two weeks ago, when she had moved herself and her children into a single room at a rundown motel on East Busch Boulevard after being evicted from her apartment.

She complained that Hillsborough County and the state were not helping enough, even though, according to court documents, she was drawing $2,600 a month in government food and cash assistance. She also objected to caseworkers and child-protection investigators making frequent inquiries into her home.

Her comments sparked a widespread debate about how much the state should dole to the needy, particularly to a woman who has 15 children and doesn't work. The judge's order releasing Adams said that a lot of government money has been spent on this case.

The order said agencies were prepared to pay $1,900 a month in food stamps and $600 in cash to pay for utilities and other expenses at her new house. Hillsborough Kids had paid a 4-year-old back-rent debt of $6,000 so Adams would be eligible for subsidized housing.

Two years ago, Angel lost her children to foster care following neglect allegations. Her boyfriend, the father of at least two of the children, had been jailed on drug dealing charges. He is in prison until 2014.

Adams and her children were reunited six months ago, and the family remains under the jurisdiction of Hillsborough family court.

Adams' children are at A Kid's Place, a shelter near Brandon, for foster children. Child welfare officials say they appear happy, are enrolled at a school on the property and are getting medical check-ups. A meeting is scheduled for later today to talk about a long-term plan for the children's placement.

Wade Lijewski, director of the Children's Home Society, said that several relatives of Adams and church members of those relatives have come forward asking to help.

Nick Cox, regional director of the Florida Department of Children & Families, said Adams' apology was a move forward, as the goal of the department is always to reunite children with biological parents.

The children will not be reunited with their mother in the foreseeable future, though Adams will be allowed to visit them if she gives notifies officials 48 hours in advance. Cox said the agency will come up with a plan for the family within a week and has a year to decide whether to work toward reunification or ask that parental rights for Adams be terminated.

"What [Adams] did today was a major turnaround," Cox said after the hearing. "I hope it's sincere."
Click to expand...

My head hurts, just considering what the future holds for those kids who have no idea what is going on. This country is going to implode on itself, whatever happened to personal responsibility?!

Kias · May 5, 2010

That article makes me want to grind my eyes out after reading it. :X

TokyoSpirit · May 7, 2010

Wow and I didn't even have to click on the article to know what I knew already. There's a video of that family out there too.

Those kids are going to grow up thinking that th eway they are living is 'normal'.

TAG Manager · May 12, 2010

Wow. Where can I sign up for free money??? Oh wait! I know, I'm white and I'd have to wait one year to get any benefits. (If any at all...)

Crazy shit, welfare in the U.S. needed more a reform than healthcare did. Fuck, if they'd just stop spending so much money on the military, just think would could be accomplished!

Keep Working America, More handouts are needed!

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Keep Working America, More handouts are needed!

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Executive Leadership