Press Release 4.07.20

Something dystopian and totalitarian is happening to us and I need other people to observe it:

** Update: moved to a FEMA trailer on June 14, 2020. Things are even worse. I can no longer cope with this alone. People need to know how we – and the others in here – are being treated.

My husband, a 68 year-old-man w/ liver cancer, is being endangered by Sacramento County DHS’s refusal to continue (after three weeks) to provide the SAME isolation unit at Skyriders Motel in Sacramento, California until the Shelter-in-Place is lifted.

Today is Monday, April 6th, 2020. This COVID-19 hell has been going on for 19 days and it (not the virus) is killing us. The stress is unbearable.

On 3.18.20, we were sheltering-in-place (per Governor Newsom’s order) in our own home, which is an RV (see photo below), and we had just the day before paid $105 for the week at Sherman Island County Park a few miles outside Antioch, California. No refund was given when the Park Rangers showed up 3.19.20 to close the park at the Governor’s command. When I protested and asked where all the full-timers were supposed to go, and that I wanted a copy of the order so I could go to court the next morning for an injunction, one of the Park Rangers laughed and said, “That’s going to be hard since all the courts are closed.”

My blood chilled.

We had been living at the park since late October 2019 (I have 15+ receipts in my purse right now, including the most recent one). After Greg’s hospitalization in August 2019 and diagnosis of his liver cancer on Sept 16, 2019 at UCSF’s Liver Transplant unit (see https://gofundme.com/f/a-liver for more on that, including documentation), life was quiet for us. I had been keeping him isolated since mid-February. We were stocked up and secure that we had enough to get to the first of the month when our SSI check came in. Our fuel pump had gone out a few days earlier and we’d already arranged for a mobile mechanic to come out and do the work. We had no idea that the strong arm of the County Government was about to descend on us.

When the Park Rangers found out we couldn’t start the RV, the forward motion to get us out of it and into “permanent housing” began right there on the spot with intimidation. When I told them my husband (inside) was very ill and needed to be kept away from everyone, due to his age and the liver issues, I was told that they “had a place for him” and that we had to be gone by 9am the next morning no matter what and that the RV would be towed. To our knowledge, it is still there, but we aren’t really sure since we have been put (by Sacramento County) in a motel 70 miles away in South Sacramento. 

Please note that the amount of taxpayers’ money that the County has spent on this motel (and all the while telling me that I must go into the “real” housing they are offering) all this taxpayers’ money could have repaired my fuel pump three, maybe four times.

The Park Ranger gave me a card for a Navigator, who acts as a sort of go-between for the County. She was a super-nice, extremely-accessible lady who immediately got us a motel. The email she sent that day (3.19.20) with directions on how to get to the motel, inside it, the County made its first “offer” of a shelter placement in a group home setting, with two or three other formerly homeless couples and a house monitor. It would also be in “lockdown”. Well, of course, I explained that that was terribly dangerous because he had an open head wound and his overall health had already suffered enough just the 70-mile drive to Sacramento from the county park.

I was told at this time that a report had been made by the County social worker to Adult Protective Services.  The Navigator said it wasn’t because I wasn’t taking good care of my husband, but it was so they could access more resources.

The motel room we were put in had no kitchen, only a small fridge and a small microwave to heat things up in. We had no money, having put all of it in the gas tank to drive here. The rest of our food stock went to waste because most of it, we couldn’t cook without a stove. No one ever asked how we were eating. Our daughters sent us money they couldn’t afford as well as pizzas and other delivery food. On March 30, 2020, my oldest daughter sent an email to about a dozen people in DHS and City government, but to no avail.  There was one half-hearted answer.  After all, we are now CLASSIFIED as homeless and merely a number.

News that the second week’s voucher was approved came the day before check-out. The entire time it was up in the air if we would get it. Also, we were told since we didn’t want permanent housing, there were no services that could be offered to us (not even bandages to help with my husband’s open wound). This was written down in an email. 

The third week’s voucher involved even more pleading about how sick my husband was.  I was on pins and needles by this time.  This is so stressful.   The Navigator told me if I didn’t want to accept the County’s offer (and she sent a full description of the offered “shelter” in an email and it really was a group home setting to be shared with 5 to 7 strangers, completely irresponsible to a man with the health issues my husband has) … … …  well, she said, then perhaps I could email local churches to see if they could donate to our stay here or if they had a place we could have the RV towed to so we could live in it until we could arrange the repair.  The Ombudsperson that called me awhile later suggested asking motels if we could live in their parking lot, or the Elks Lodge.  She also mentioned Walmart.  It was hard not to  laugh.  Or cry.

When the third (and final) voucher was downstairs at the motel manager’s office, and I went to get it for Greg to sign, the manager told me that the social worker had told him to tell me that this would be the last voucher.  That was extremely embarrassing, so I told him how we had driven through the deserted streets to a closed courthouse to file paper about how these guys were treating us.  I asked him then and there would he continue renting to us if the County was made to give us vouchers.  He said, yes, in light of the pandemic and because my husband was a high-risk group, he would be willing to do so.  He was very kind and cordial.  

Now for the latest evolution in this humiliating process of begging for one’s shelter every week (Monday, April 6th, 2020), the Navigator called to tell me today to relay that the County had approved the motel voucher once more but we would have to either move to another motel or to leave and sleep somewhere else for one night and then return to the same motel, but it was “policy” so nobody would acquire residency.   Even the manager called me to say the social worker had called HIM to say it was the policy we could only stay 21 days in any one motel.  He even laughed and told me to keep at it and not be discouraged.  As I said, super-nice people at Skyriders motel in South Sacramento.   

Look, I have Lyme Disease and get brain fog sometimes pretty bad, so let me be clear.  First I got a text with the message from the County that the MOTEL had this policy.  Then when I go downstairs and confirm this isn’t so, the worker calls the MANAGER and tells them this County has this policy, and then he has the good sense to call me up on the house phone while I am on my cell phone talking to the Navigator about how I will go on a hunger strike in front of the Capitol before I allow my husband to sleep in the motel I saw Gavin Newsom standing in front of on April 3rd.  The one that the Ombudperson told me that “Angel” had offered us “non-congregate housing” at the new motel. No one but the Navigator has ever communicated anything.  This is pure gaslighting.  And these people get real salaries to do this kind of crap.  I have been to this rodeo before. 

Another exhibit to get in front of a judge once everything opens back up.  And it WILL open up again, trust me.  Democracy ain’t gone anywhere. 

After a few hours of thinking on it (out loud on my Facebook), a few friends pitched in and bought us Thursday’s night motel rent.  I wrote the Navigator to ask the County if that was okay, would they be here Friday with the voucher?  After all, the only thing that counts is keeping Greg in a safe environment while this pandemic passes over.  What I would really like to happen is to go back in time, be back into our RV to shelter-in-place in our own home like everyone else.  get the mobile mechanic, pay for him ourselves, and move on down the road, like the gypsies we are. Find a nice campground to pay rent to and hunker down.  

Haven’t heard back from anyone at the County, so I’ve decided to pour my energy into this Press Release while I wait.