Thousands are being deported without a chance to appear before an immigration judge.
One and done
If a CHA resident is arrested one time, the tenant is sent to eviction court. But a Chicago Reporter analysis found that the policy separates families and ousts some who were never convicted of breaking the law.
Jessica Moore and her six children were sent packing when the Chicago Housing Authority evicted the entire household based on her boyfriend’s arrest for a $12 bag of marijuana. Photo by Jason Reblando.
Jessica Moore showed up at the Daley Center, shaken and without a lawyer. She had a bad feeling about how things might play out in court.
A lawyer hired by a company that manages Chicago Housing Authority properties approached her. She followed him into courtroom 1302 and was ushered into a small conference area tucked away in the corner. A steady stream of eviction cases were called at the bench as they talked.
The CHA wanted to cut a deal: If she agreed to move out, the agency would let her and her six children stay seven days.
Moore balked.
“I’ll take it to trial,” she told him.
Moore, 39, is just one of hundreds of low-income residents the CHA has taken to eviction court for violating the agency’s one-strike policy during the past six years. The rule is part of a set of national guidelines created in 1996 to make public housing developments safer by ridding them of people who commit crime.
But there was a problem. Moore was no criminal.
When the national policy was drafted, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development empowered local housing authorities to tailor their own one-strike rules for best rooting out criminal activity as long as it was relevant to the peace and safety of its residents.
By the CHA’s standard, all arrests are subject to one-strike. As a result, tenants have lost their homes over nonviolent offenses, including shoplifting and marijuana possession.
The CHA had also chosen to evict leaseholders under one-strike for crimes committed by their children and anyone living in the unit, even if the crime occurred on property not owned by the CHA. Tenants are also culpable if their guests commit a crime on CHA property.
A new Chicago Reporter analysis found that from 2005 to 2010 the CHA opened 1,390 one-strike cases. The vast majority of them—86 percent in 2010—had nothing to do with the primary leaseholder.
When people were arrested, the person named on the lease was automatically summoned to eviction court, a civil matter, even though the criminal court cases were still pending in many instances.
If the CHA had considered how those cases played out in criminal court, it would have discovered that more than half of the defendants were found not guilty, their cases were thrown out or they were never prosecuted, the Reporter analysis found. Instead, one in three tenants whose criminal cases were tossed out or ended with a “not guilty” verdict, had their entire household evicted or moved out without a fight, the analysis shows.
CHA lawyer Scott Ammarell said that his agency takes an across-the-board approach to pursuing a one-strike eviction policy, regardless of the severity of the charges.
“If we get an arrest report and the charge on the arrest report is an offense that will end somebody’s eligibility to continue to receive a subsidy from the federal government, we pursue it,” he said.
It’s a policy that newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to stand by. The mayor’s office declined an interview but issued a statement that said, “The Chicago Housing Authority has an obligation to provide the 30,000 individuals who currently reside in public housing with affordable and safe housing. The safety of CHA residents, its children and families as well as its neighbors is a top priority.”
Some critics say that the evictions are not only too harsh, but also premeditated. Earlier this year, the CHA demolished the last of its 51 high-rise public housing buildings. It was part of the agency’s Plan for Transformation. Eligible residents will get new units in mixed-income neighborhoods or subsidies to move into the private rental market. By barring many from public housing, some speculate that the CHA can avoid having to move them into replacement units, which are currently in short supply.
The Reporter’s analysis found that the number of one-strike cases across the city increased sharply in CHA developments where demolition was eminent. Cabrini-Green, Harold Ickes, Henry Horner and the ABLA housing developments accounted for more than a third of all one-strike cases in the past six years. Combined, those four developments accounted for more than half of all public housing units demolished during that time.
A large number of one-strike evictions have occurred in the new mixed-income communities, which replaced traditional public housing in gentrifying neighborhoods in the Near North, Near South and Near West sides. It’s in those same mixed-income communities that residents’ ability to fight one-strike evictions has been weakened the most.
One-strike cases are the only type of public housing eviction where tenants have no chance to file a grievance or request an internal hearing. Their only shot at beating the case is in civil court.
But most CHA tenants can’t afford a lawyer. And they can face long odds at winning the case—even with a legal defense. Meanwhile, in the spring, the CHA attempted to revoke its “innocent tenant” clause, residents’ main avenue for fending off evictions in the courtroom.
The clause gives the head of household—the person who was not arrested, even if someone in their household was—a chance to plead their innocence and protect the housing unit for the rest of the family who wasn’t involved in the crime.
The CHA’s proposal to revoke the clause was quashed in late June after public uproar. But the defense is becoming a moot point in most of the newest one-strike cases because the private developers hired to create mixed-income communities aren’t required to consider culpability in pursuing an eviction. That’s because the innocent tenant defense is not written into the lease agreement that tenants in the privatized developments are required to adhere to. Meanwhile, the number of one-strike cases continues to climb in these developments.
“We know the game,” said Shannon Bennett an organizer with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, which has been an outspoken critic of the policy for more than a decade. “These policies are intended to push people out.”
1230 N. Burling St. | Photo by Jon Lowenstein.
No community has experienced more one-strike cases than Cabrini-Green.
The CHA had 74 public housing developments sprawled across the city. Yet, roughly one in five of the one-strike arrests involved Cabrini residents.
A decade ago, nearly 13,000 people lived in the Near North Side public housing community, which was anchored by 1230 N. Burling St. and seven other decaying concrete towers.
Today, the buildings are all gone; some have been replaced by mixed-income homes, apartments and condos. Many of the new residents of the area are increasingly white and college-educated, and just 444 of the units there are for public housing.
Moore moved in when she was 23.
Her paychecks never came close to covering rent in the private market. So for more than a decade, she and her children squeezed into a two-bedroom Cabrini-Green apartment at 624 W. Division St.
When a four bedroom at 1230 N. Burling St. opened in 2005, she and her children—whose ages at the time ranged from 1 to 13—jumped at the chance to spread out. She had just quit her job as a cashier at a Walgreens and enrolled in classes part-time at Robert Morris College working toward a business degree.
She crossed paths with her boyfriend Ricky Dyer not long after moving in. Dyer had a history with Cabrini. He was born in 1983 and grew up in the development. As a teenager, he earned a reputation as a drug dealer and was given the nickname “Rickdog.” By the time he was 20, he was convicted of selling drugs. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts and was sentenced to one year in prison.
Once he got out, Dyer moved back in with his mom and steered clear of major trouble, but he had a few run-ins with police. He was arrested for trespassing and public drinking, but both cases were tossed out.
Around that time, he and Moore began dating.
By 2009, their neighborhood had changed dramatically. Moore’s building was one of the last two Cabrini-Green high-rises left standing. Her building sat to the far left of a rusting gate that served as the official, but least used, entrance to the 15-story buildings known as “the whites” for their pale concrete exterior.
The other 21 mid- and high-rise buildings had been knocked down by the wrecking ball and replaced with red-brick townhomes with lush shrubs, flawless concrete and quaint names, like North Town Village. Police were brought in to pay special attention to Burling Street, which was one of the last corners of the neighborhood occupied exclusively by public housing residents.
Under an agreement with the CHA, the agency and the Chicago Police Department freely exchanged arrest information. The two agencies signed off on the pact in 2000. If someone with a public housing address was arrested, or an arrest was made on the CHA’s property, police automatically passed along the police report to the CHA.
Burling residents became suspicious when police began showing up by the dozens. Moore knew that all it took was a single arrest to open a criminal-activity eviction. No conviction was required. No internal investigation was launched. And Moore knew from experience that the cops patrolling her building rarely flinched at throwing cuffs on her neighbors.
“The police would come into the building each day either knocking into somebody’s apartment or grabbing guys downstairs,” Moore said.
Arrests climbed as demolition of the building inched closer. Burling began to empty quickly. In the fall of 2010, only 39 of the building’s 134 units were occupied. During the last 20 months that the 1230 N. Burling St. building was occupied, 19 households were hit with a one-strike eviction. The leading cause for arrest was misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Moore had a love-hate relationship with the police. On one hand, she feared them because she knew that her eldest son, Devonte, was becoming a troublemaker. At 16, he’d already been in and out of rehab after getting arrested for drugs.
While many of Moore’s neighbors did their best to avoid the police, she saw them as her last hope for reining in Devonte. He was hardheaded.
“I couldn’t tell him anything,” she said. She appealed to a couple of trusted cops known around Cabrini as “Eddie Murphy” and “Babyface” for their help. “I told them, ‘Stop him if he’s selling drugs. I don’t want to get put out.’”
Nothing prepared Moore for the morning of Sept. 25, 2009, when a team of 19 officers busted down her front door just after 8 a.m. as her children slipped on their shoes and backpacks on their way out to school.
For two hours, the officers picked through Moore’s four-bedroom apartment, finding $48 worth of marijuana stashed on a shelf in Devonte’s bedroom. During a pat down, a dime bag of cannabis, worth $12, was recovered from Dyer’s right shorts pocket. He was charged with misdemeanor pot possession.
Within days of the raid, Moore got her notice that her lease would be terminated.
The Reporter found that a growing number of families have similarly faced eviction based on low-level, misdemeanor charges. More than 70 percent of the one-strike cases involved drug possession; less than 10 percent were attributed to the drug dealing that one-strike was created largely to address.
A growing number of these cases are based on low-level crimes. In 2005, 40 percent of all one-strike arrests involved a misdemeanor charge. By 2010, that figure had grown to 76 percent, the Reporter found. A disproportionate number of those arrests involved black teens and men living in the two rapidly gentrifying Chicago wards, the 2nd and 27th, which have flipped from being majority black to racially mixed over the past decade.
Alderman Walter Burnett, whose 27th Ward includes Cabrini where he grew up, chalked up the spike in arrests in the area to the increased pressure city officials, the CHA and police face from new homeowners.
“Just look at 1230 Burling,” Burnett said. “Those [neighbors] complained about the building every day. Every day. Why? Because they wanted the building down. Why did they want the building down? One, because they thought it was affecting their property values.”
Elizabeth Rosenthal | Photo by J. Geil.
Moore fought for her apartment for six months. When her trial date finally came, police testified about Dyer’s pot possession. She lost, and a judge gave her and her children seven days to move.
“I’m like, ‘Where I’m gonna go with six kids?’” she asked.
In a gesture of mercy, Moore said, the CHA extended her move-out date to 60 days.
Cook County Sherriff’s police hauled the last bit of broken furniture out of her apartment on June 30, 2010. Nine months later, the Burling high-rise was demolished.
What happened to Moore, Burnett said, runs counter to what the CHA is given millions in federal anti-poverty dollars each year to do: stabilize families.
“CHA should be thinking about how to keep people in those apartments. They should be advocating toward helping people to keep their places, not finding ways to put them out,” said Burnett, who was convicted of armed robbery, a felony, at 17 when he was joy riding with friends in Kankakee. “Everybody deserves a second chance.”
In June, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan issued a letter reminding housing authorities that there are only two types of people who are prohibited from living in public housing: methamphetamine producers and registered sex offenders. “[E]vidence of rehabilitation or evidence of [a] family’s participation in or willingness to participate in social services such as counseling programs should be considered,” Donovan wrote.
CHA officials, however, point to a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2002 that upheld a California housing authority’s right to evict an Oakland woman although she wasn’t responsible for the crime that got her evicted under one-strike.
Still, even within the CHA, the importance of arrest histories is inconsistent. Arrests alone, for example, don’t preclude applicants from joining the agency’s housing waiting list, which currently has roughly 40,000 names.
Ultimately, HUD cedes to housing authorities the power to draft policies that protect the safety and well-being of their residents. But under the Obama administration, the agency isn’t quick to endorse them.
“Housing authorities tend to point the finger at HUD, saying [one-strike] is a federal policy,” HUD spokeswoman Donna White said. “We leave it to them to use discretion.”
As Linda Couch, senior vice president for policy with the National Low Income Housing Coalition sees it, “Both HUD and local agencies play both sides when it serves their purposes.”
The Chicago-based Legal Assistance Foundation negotiated an innocent tenant defense back in the mid-1990s to help soften Chicago’s one-strike policy. Because private firms own the new mixed-income communities, they aren’t bound to the defense. But the number of new one-strike cases is becoming more prevalent in those areas. For example, in the Westhaven Park community, which replaced the Henry Horner Homes on the Near West Side, 41 percent of all one-strike cases in the past six years occurred in 2010 alone.
As far as lawyer Elizabeth Rosenthal is concerned, the innocent tenant defense is the only avenue public housing residents have to defend themselves. “Otherwise, CHA operates with no discretion in these cases,” she said.
It’s particularly important because in 84 percent of the eviction arrests, the primary leaseholder wasn’t responsible for the criminal activity, the Reporter’s analysis found.
The CHA’s expectation is that tenants who successfully evoke the defense will end up barring the person they describe as the “bad actor.” Typically, the rest of the family is allowed to stay under the condition that the person barred will never return to CHA property. One slip, and the deal is broken with no chance for appeal, even if the person barred is the tenant’s own child.
Moore found an apartment in West Englewood. Her family squeezed into the two bedroom for six months until the building went into foreclosure.
People suggested she move into a transitional housing shelter until she could get back on her feet. But she feared Devonte, who’s now 18, would have been pushed into an adult shelter and that her 17-year-old daughter would be next.
“I’m not leaving my kids,” she said. “My kids are my life.”
Moore maxed out her student loans—taking out $8,000 last fall—to cover the rent in her current two-bedroom in Avalon Park on the South Side. Three children sleep in a sunroom filled with garbage bags full of clothes that were soiled by a leak in the first apartment. There’s mold in the kitchen and a hole in the bathroom ceiling where water gushes in from time to time. There’s no washing machine, so she sometimes washes the family’s clothes by hand.
Moore’s rent is now $750 a month—a far cry from the $72 a month she paid at Cabrini-Green. “Plus I have to pay the gas bill,” she said. “Plus the light bill.”
After six years, Moore and Dyer are still together. Finding permanent work has been tough, though. He’s handy and has been able to pick up odd janitorial jobs.
Moore has also turned to the state for welfare through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund, which she hadn’t done in nearly two decades. It brings in another $555 a month.
“I felt I didn’t want it or need it before. I was working,” she said. “But now it’s really hard to find a job. And I really don’t want to quit school. I’m at the door of my associate’s degree.”
Meanwhile, her children catch a train and a bus to get to the same North Side schools they went to while living on Burling Street. “I didn’t want to switch schools because I didn’t know if I was going to be moving,” Moore said.
Two are at Suder Montessori, which she describes as a good magnet school. Her two youngest boys attend Jenner, the neighborhood school closest to Cabrini-Green. And her eldest daughter is going to be a senior at Lincoln Park High School this fall. In one more year, she’ll be off to college.
Both Moore and her daughter are trying to stay positive and think of college as their best chance to open new doors. When her daughter starts stressing about tuition and considers downgrading her plans to community college, Moore pushes her.
“I’m like, ‘No, you’re going to go out of Chicago,’” Moore said. “I want her to get a good education so she can go wherever she wants to go.”
Dylan Cinti, Alexis Pope, Caitlin Huston and Louis McGill helped research.
acaputo@chicagoreporter.com
Was there a search warrant?
So 19 cops burst in to her apartment (no knock, of course) and search not only the apartment but also the residents - was there a search warrant? I seem to remember that in this country we're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty - not presumed guilty just because you're arrested (Chicago PD, for that matter any PD has a record in poor neighborhoods for just rounding up & arresting poor folks because they know they can't afford good lawyers & therefore will help w/the conviction rate). I know you'd hear bloody hell if cops executed a no knock search & arrest in a wealthy suburb or a tony city neighborhood, that's why it never happens (even though that's where the majority of drug use occurs). Just because you're poor & live in public housing does not meant you lose your constitutional rights. The 4th Amendment plainly states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized." The Amendment doesn't exclude poor people. Once we start sliding down the slippery slope of who, and who does not, deserve constitutionally protected rights, we're done as a Democracy. Welcome to the Police State. Glad to see that the City of Chicago can afford to send 19 cops to seize how much pot - $12 + $48 = $60! That wouldn't even cover the coffe & donuts for them!
just plain hysterical
too funny
Point!
Pity that unless you make it a class action lawsuit paying for an attorney to fight this would be near impossible, and even then, when choosing between putting food on the table or a roof over your head, adding attorney fees into the mix is less than desirable.
Finally enforcing CHA rules
Many interesting points in this article:
- I hope her children are not kicked out of their neighborhood schools because she has just publicly admitted she does not live in the service boundaries any longer
- Seems that the mixed income is forcing the accountability. I live across the street from HUD and Section 8, attend CAPs meetings religiously and pressure the alderman (Burnett)
There are rules that accompany the privilege of living in public housing. One of them is that only adults listed on the lease are allowed to live there. She was either violating her lease by allowing her boyfriend to stay or he was on the lease and therefore jeopardized it.
We have grandmas aross the street who allow their grandsons to stay with them and all of a sudden they own the building and start their drug trade. WE pressured them to start enforcing the leases. Now the young men in the white T-shirts are no where to be seen. Is it possible that the density of public housing (with no neighbors close by who were lookin gout for their property values) kept neighbors from reporting violations to the police? Or neighbors didn't want their neighbors to lose their apartments so they didn't call police. Neither of those things help police enforce the law in public housing
-Perhaps enforcing the rules will also force some folks to straighten up because you are not going to get a second or third chance. The mother will continue to focus on education as a way out of the public assistance cycle. As for Devonte, hopefully he can see what he has caused the family to lose and get a job or join the service.
-this mother obviously has a big heart and loves her children. Sometimes that means tough love. And getting out of public housing might bring about the best prognosis for her younger children.
-People who buy near public housing don't expect it to go away. We just expect the residents to be good neighbors. Because many have no vested interested in maintaining or improving the property or the neighborhood, we must rely on the landlords (CHA and government) to do so. All we are forcing the landlord to do is enforce their own rules.
CHA-Evil Empire
You make very good points and I can concur fully with your position. Her son is 18 and under the circumstances he should be making every possible, legal effort to relieve his mother of the burden of taking care of him. However, in reading the article it looks very much like the CHA and the CPD are not considering the "rules" or the law when it comes to families like Ms. Moore's. There are alternatives and if the CHA cared they would try them.
CHA-Evil Empire
The people in the CHA and the CPD who promote and enforce such policies are some of the worst examples of human beings on this earth. Their actions are obviously intended to do harm when the need for good and sound reasonable acts are overwhelmingly in demand. They are simply shallow, evil people and should not be allowed to occupy positions where their psychosis may affect the public. I hope Ms Moore well and that her story gets more public recognition.
Experience living in the neighborhood now
I live in the mixed income community mentioned in the article, having paid market price for my condo. Most of the CHA residents are respectful and law abiding. However, there are some bad apples. In the last two months, CHA residents have been caught harboring known felons, who were also their adult children, selling drugs from their condos, destroying property, and engaging in gang activity. Mothers can argue that they cannot control what their children do, but neither can the community. Who interests should be placed first? Especially, when threatening people are being lured into the neighborhood by these individuals? Moreover, why should the bad apples be able to stay in the neighborhood while 40,000 potentially better candidates wait on a list. Lets move the bad apples out of these communities so that others are given a shot. Also, as far as first offenses (at least in my community), by the time this gets to court, the community has grown tired of the identified individual and have lodged numerous complaints. It takes the community calling the police's attention to this individual and then calling to help the police catch the individual in the act. As you can imagine, this cat and mouse game can take a while as evidence is established of the suspicious activity that allows police to take action. When the person is finally caught with something (so evidence can be produced) is when the eviction process is started. This is not antidotal, this is fact based on experience.
CHA-Evil Empire...maybe not so
Wow, the more I read on this the closer I come to being convinced, what was done was necessary. Although, I still have hope for her. It seems she's being punished because of her environment, which she doesn't have the capabilities to control on her own.
Thank you
for the voice of reason. well said
In your smgness . . .
In all of your smugness and relative comfort, please remember that "By the Grace of God there go I." For those of you who have expressed derision for this family, it is my fervent prayer that you experience similiar circumstances. When "they" come for you, perhaps the rest of us, who have not lost our compassion or commonsense, will rise up and state how you have been marginalized and subject to unfair procedures. But, then again, maybe not.
Workers
It is all about the individual and their decisions. It has nothing to do with God, we all chose this life or that life. God created us, but we all have free will in our decisions. This person chose to have six kids in not knowing how to pay for them, and that should be ok in the decision she made. NO NO not ok you should be able to pay for every child you bring into this world without depending on the working class to get you thru your six mistakes made.
One strike law
I was dumbfounded when I read the article and it spoke about the number of one strike law cases that did not involve the leaseholder. While I agree that public housing must be made safe for all residents who stay there, it makes no sense whatsoever to evict family members that had nothing to do with the crime. I also agree that any persons perpetuating crime in public housing should be made to leave, but with the economy in such terribly shape, how can CHA evict entire families who are already in the housing of last resort. We need to do all we can to help these families find their way to self sufficiency and not penalize them for the actions of others. Whatever happened to tempering justice with mercy? Ed Lucas
HA HA
""Moore fought for her apartment for six months. When her trial date finally came, police testified about Dyer’s pot possession. She lost, and a judge gave her and her children seven days to move.""
“I’m like, ‘Where I’m gonna go with six kids?’” she asked.
I',m Like what the hell were you doing in six months that you knew you may lose Tax funded housing
These Niggers need to wake up
“Plus I have to pay the gas bill,” she said. “Plus the light bill.
Yeah That's the weird huh? Imagine paying for the gas and light that you use.
Re one strike law
"who are already in the housing of last resort."
LOL
This is the housing of first resort
So let me get this straight.
So let me get this straight. From 1995 until 2010 she lived at Cabrini Green paying around $72 a month rent. Fifteen years. Not temporary help -- very long term help. And very cheap rent.
At the time she moved in at the age of 23, she had one or two kids -- maybe the 18 year old son and 17 year old daughter -- it's hard to tell from the article. She then -- even though she couldn't afford to provide housing to the two children she had -- proceeded to have four more children over the next fifteen years. Apparently the dads aren't around to help out with the bills, and apparently the 17 and 18 year old are unable to work to help put a roof over their own heads, since she had to use her student loans to pay for housing. (Good luck paying those back, by the way.)
Sorry, but I don't feel any pity here. Stop having kids you can't afford. If you didn't have six, you wouldn't have to complain about cramming in to a two bedroom apartment. I'd love to have a four bedroom apartment in Chicago, but unfortunately that costs a lot of money. It certainly doesn't cost $72 a month. And gasp at having to pay the gas and electric bill. Yes. Many places you also have to pay for the water you use. Fifteen years of subsidized living does not well equip a person for "the real world." Also, maybe you shouldn't date a known criminal and man who brings drugs into your house. Blame him for your mess, not the CHA. Why doesn't he help you pay the rent?
seniors housing
to what extend has the seniors housing been studies
chicago housing issuse
my name is mellaney i stayed on the south side of chicago i have 5 kids but 4 stay with me my son the 18 years old met this boy where we stay at they be came friends then i notices that this the boy that broke in the house 2 doors down from me so i call the police and report it to them but it do not help so i told my son i did want the boy back in my house now one day i leave to go out i come home to find out the same boy broke in to my house and he running thow the alley so me and my so follow him we came up to the house he live at we knock on the but they did want to answer the door so started to call out the boy name he not answer so we call the police an waited there until the police come they came we told them what was going on so he knock on the door but they did want to answer so he made a report about what happen so i got in my car an drove home to take my son back home and then a went back to the home of the little boy an sat out side i n my car on the other side of street were he stay thats we a lady came out side that we i told her want was go on se went off on me cussing at me about callthe police a the mom houes saying he mom is going to be mad i told her i just want my computer the boy that came in ther he got it she started figthing me and then she try to cut me i notice that she hade a knife we tussle over the i bit he on he arm she was try to take it from me so i cut her 3 time she would stop trying to fight me so some people came out to stop the fight and then afther the fight the boy was in the house looking at all this i got in my car an call the police at this time am scared the police was goingto lock me up so when the police knock on the door i did answer so the plice use the to pop my lock on the enter door to house and came and ack me how car is that i said its main they said they place me under arrest i told them for what i try to tell them want happen they did want help me all so i tolking out my home with hand cuff they keep acking what happen to the knife i told them i thow it down she got she keep tell some boy to get the knife so boy ack like he was goin to hit me so thow it she know the boys over there she live there longer the me ather my finger print came back clear then so more police tolk me and the police truck they toke me to jackson pary hospital said that i was crazy i need to see a doctor a nother 3 house i sat waiting on a doctor after the doctor seen me the police let me goi wnet home and then my kids say the boy came over ther with gang friend talking about want they going to to me and my kids so call sec.8 for help and then i call alderman thats in my area but i did get on help from no oneso now i call sec 8 about what happen they now is kicking me off sec8 voucher progam i told the courts about what was going and my report did matter so i put on probation for 1 year and then sec8 send me a letter intent to termiate so now im fight sec 8 ,hud , chicago housing when do you get help when you call sec.8 dont call back the tell you call legle aid for help or aldermans office but they say at your beliefing if you feel you are in danger to call the fraud line at sec 8 and some one contact you they dont you call sec8 for you service or team member you leave a number and wait 24 hours they stiil dont call back week a month 2 or 3 they only call back if you got in to trouble
rights AND responsibilities
6 children? really? over a 12 year period, this woman, who was living in subsidized housing and couldn't afford to take care of herself kept having more children & then has such a sense of entitlement as to get angry that there are limits, restrictions and expectations that go along with the handout? really? parents should be responsible for their underage children and adults should be responsible for who they let into their lives and into their homes. she knew he had a drug problem, she knew he has a history of illegal activity and yet she made the decision to allow him into her home knowing that she was risking her children's home by breaking the rules. and she has the nerve to get mad when she is held accountable for her actions and decisions. i don't feel a bit sorry for her but her children are the victims of her behavior. i agree, how selfish she is. she is more concerned about making herself feel good by having a boyfriend than worrying about what is in her children's best interest. along with entitlements, handouts, rights...goes responsibility. you can't have it both ways....you can't have children you can't afford and then cry about being poor. you can't criticize the police for not keeping a neighborhood safe and then complain when you yourself break the rules and engage in illegal behavior. i think it is time for folks to start cleaning up their own back yards instead blaming others for their mess.