Defenders of Poor are Spineless

            I have had numerous accounts of CPS investigation.  This was due to the fathers of my children believing that I was worth laying down with, but not worth child support payment.  They felt that calls to CPS would end child support requirements and warrants, not to mention garnishments.

            While caring for my four children, I participated in their education and the educational rights of fellow parents.  We were community volunteers for civil rights.  I hired babysitters working 12 am to 10 am while I worked with a federal employer family court case and child support enforcement hearings. 

            My children were removed from my home on about four accounts.  My rights were terminated after two accounts of convictions within 11 years of the 14 years receiving benefits. 

            I was charged with fraud after reporting employment with the federal agency.  But I was not indicted due to a competent family attorney now retired.  (I still wonder why he did not sue for damages.)  My employer finally dismissed me after reporting my last pregnancy under FMLA and an injury on the job due to employer’s neglect.  That time welfare removed my children from my grant. Once they removed me from my own grant; they hog-tied my attorney or a “no-fault” settlement in the amount of $19000.  They went to the Supreme Court and had me claimed incompetent without notice, counsel, or defense.  I was evicted from my home of eight years—all to my disbelief.

            My court-appointed attorneys were even worse.  The first one, after the last conviction, filed an appeal but failed for unknown reasons to continue the appeal.  The other court-appointed attorney had not once met with me, contacted me, nor defended me during rescheduled court dates for termination of my parental rights!  (Still the judge felt it was right to continue the termination.)

            Living in the shelter system since 1998 has torn at everything that I hold dear.  I have faced constant relocation either for lack of beds or new-found employment that did not last due to the daily travel with my luggage.

            I lived a year in NY shelters, in New Jersey from 1999 to 2003 and in Pennsylvania to the present.  You must have an income to pay 75% towards shelter fees and a percentage into an escrow for moving expenses once an apartment is found. 

            This sounds good but in the reality what ever can go wrong has—from theft of funds paid, to fraud, all in the name of “self sufficiency.”  It is more like being in jail.  You’re fold when to get up, go to bed, time meals are served—even time to take your prescribed medicine!

            You’re even kicked out either temporarily until things quiet down ore relocated for not being able to cope with the structure.  Through all this I am lucky to only have to struggle with my own mental health issue and the loss of my children, whom I have not seen since 2000.  Nor has the court considered their natural fathers, family members, and even less than their own grandparents!  All of this is because we are poor. 

            Contacting legal services, legal aide, law firms and private counsel is hopeless.  Is it that in the frenzied feeding of the world today those who defend our rights under law can no longer find their backbones?  If they could not do anything for me and my children (poor) why would I go out and get $500 or $5000 to pay for anyone who either could not win my case or do not have the courage to win for me or my children under federal statute and damage law?