If its been this hard for me (w/ husband in “high risk” group) to get a room during pandemic…can you imagine how impossible this is for the normal person? I have a skill set. As soon as I saw what was happening, I knew what was happening. I complained. I pushed back. I waited. No response. Pushed again. They told me their way or the highway. I went to a closed down courthouse and threw down paper. I built a blog. I wrote a Press Release. I wrote a complaint to FEMA (where the County gets $ from). I wrote and mailed the County an Administrative Claim. I emailed the brass of DHS, the Mayor, the supervisors. When they called me the Ombudsperson and the Navigator, I explained to them how they will have no immunity when I sue them because the Governor’ executive order to shelter “high risk” and when they closed the campground without notice I had a just the day before paid $105 for a week…the fact the RV wouldn’t start let them have an excuse to rescue me. Well, this has been so unbelievably hard. Instead of caring for my husband, I have had to put a foot up their collective bureaucratic asses. I’m exhausted.

But wait, what if you don’t have the ability to do all (or any) of what I have put into this. I had to force them to do exactly what the Governor is on the TV saying FEMA money is paying for.

You want to know the ridiculous part. My mobile mechanic will cost $600. That’s one week in this motel. Three weeks, paid one miserable week at a time, begging and pleading and cajoling and demanding. Next three weeks will be paid all at once. Motel gets a check for $1800 for next three weeks. That’s $3200, which is 6 fuel pumps.

And 97% of people think the homeless on sidewalk with all their crap spilling out is the PROBLEM.

Blind bastards.

I won the argument with the County. See the email below. Motel paid until COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place order is lifted. And the voucher will be in MY name so the possibly contaminated paper isnt going into this isolation unit. The voucher will be there on Friday. The County really is making us spend the night out in our SUV or go to a new motel and risk infection from anyone in there the past three days. Do they wash the blankets and bed spread for every guest change-over? Of course not. What about the broom and mop and sponge and cloth that cleans every room? A motel room is like an airport terminal for germs.

We have been in the room 21 days and nothing comes into it without a real protocol of cleanliness. I was terrified the first week here. Greg has been in self-isolation back at the RV since mid-February.  Why on earth would the County even try to move us?

God bless the family who owns the motel. Right away the manager said we could leave our stuff and he wouldn’t let anyone in the room the day we are out.  That is the kindest anyone could have been to me in that moment I found out they would give me whst I had demanded, i.e. the room voucher for the duration but official assurance we had a place to stay til this is over. After all, thats what FEMA money is supplied for.   I was SO mad.

Its unbelievable that the County, people tasked (and paid) to care for the vulnerable would do this. And when I get through with them (already sent in paperwork to all involved and also sent it to the shut down court starting the process of litigation)…well, let me put it like this, hopefully the judge will rule within next three weeks that we don’t have to sleep in the SUV again on May 1st.

I also won argument with my husband about the choice of sleeping in the SUV or in a motel (for one night, $75 we can pay ourselves). We have fought 24 hours straight. And I won.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to argue with a dying man?

But I won. Of course I did. Was there ever s doubt?

SUV it is.   It’s just 24 hours. 

And I convinced him in the cleverest way: by saying it was going to be the best date of his life.  He said what do you mean? 

I replied, “We are going to pretend we just met and fell in love at first sight and we just can’t separate to go home because, for both of us, there are people there we don’t want to know anymore. So we are going to sit up talking all night, like we did when we first met and we couldn’t get enough of each of other.  Its gonna be awesome. We will play tourist. We are gonna go see the Capitol and the old town and walk by river and listen to music and we might even dance how long has it been since we danced and we have money we will eat anything we want. Get a roasted chicken for lunch with French bread.  And we can have Jack in Box sourdough burgers for breakfast.  Then we come back to motel and sign the voucher and close the curtains and sleep for three days because we are waaaaayyyy too old to sit up all night.”

He looked at me with this sad look and since we have been married for 26 years, I knew what he was thinking…what if something happens out there, what if he can’t keep me safe? The streets at night are different than they are in the day. Predators prowl looking for the weak. And the cancer-fatigue makes Greg very weak. I have to help him out of bed the last three weeks. And he bleeds very easy. So yeah, he’s a man. He has to be worried about me. That’s his job.

When its all said and done, it’s hard to calmly accept that the County is endangered a sick 68 year old man and his disabled (limited mobility) 59 year old wife’s safety like this. God forbid, what if we get robbed? What if I get raped out there?

First thing I am doing after we check out for the obligatory 24 hours is stop by post office to mail this question to the judge in Dept #47. Sooner or later the Courts are gonna open.

Sleep in SUV or go to a motel? Greg says motel because cancer is exhausting. I say SUV because I’m terrified of him getting coronavirus. In 26 years of marriage, we have rarely fought. Its been a dozen years. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I felt like I needed to fight. We sure did last night.

We didn’t sleep all night. The only time we weren’t arguing was when Greg would say none of these bureaucrats none of these workers will escape your wrath. Meaning mine.

Yeah, there’s a reason that in 1998 thru 2001 Kamala Harris, and before her, Katherine Feinstein, daughter of the senator, both ladies just simple deputy city attorneys in charge of CPS prosecution, in spite of 3 years trying, CPS never got them, yeahhhhhhh there’s a reason my kids were never taken off our schoolbus home that I parked right on the beach for a decade. I know how to get accountability on lowly “social” workers. Check out my book about them on Amazon. Takes the life right out of you, though.

… … … but it doesn’t help me make this decision.

The. Stress. Is. Unreal.

We were absolutely fine in our RV. Governor closes campgrounds on 3.18.20 but the RV won’t start (needs a fuel pump says the mobile mechanic about $450 to $600). Why are we being treated like this? This is elder abuse.

We were okay at the park.  We were PAYING.  We weren’t homeless.   But mostly, we were doing our best facing Greg’s recent diagnosis (9.1.6.19). 

Now, three weeks into this COVID-19 hell, all based on an INVISIBLE social worker’s whim, we are on pins and needles waiting to see if we sleep indoors or go buy a tent. While we have a perfectly good RV in the now-shuttered Sherman Island County Park, my dying husband now has to worry where we will sleep.

And thats with millions of dollars being spent to house “high risk” people like him. 68 years old. A recent diagnosis of cancer.  Open head wound that will transmit a coronavirus germ instant to his bloodstream.

http://www.gofundme.com/f/a-liver shows documentation.

 

We are still waiting to see if we are sleeping in the SUV on Thursday. This man is dying and this is how the County of Sacramento treats someone this vulnerable.

We were told yesterday the voucher would be extended another week but we have to go to another motel or we have to sleep in the SUV one night and then come back.

How about helping us get back to our RV? Instead we are treated without dignity, without concern, as if we have done something wrong by having a mechanical breakdown.

All this during a pandemic that is supposed to be peaking this week. The President said this week would be the worst … and the County is making us move somewhere else.

We offered to pay Thursday night (thank you all my Facebook family for the donations!) and then the County can bring a voucher on Friday. Nobody is responding to my texts or emails so I am left to make a blog entry as a way to timestamp their behavior.

Sooner or later, the courts will reopen and I will tell a judge about this. Until then, I am speaking here.

But in the meantime, I am going to start loading the car. In spite of being disabled from mobility issues, we were put in an upstairs room and I have to haul everything back down by myself so I better start today. Greg can barely walk.

I still have a hard time understanding why we are being treated so badly.  Especially in light of the Governor’s new partnership with FEMA supplying funds to our specific “high risk” group.   I can only surmise it’s because we won’t accept “permanent housing” and insist on repairing and returning to our RV.

Of course I am suing everyone whose name is on this case. Here, read for yourself:  mayon-v-governor-newsom-sacramento-county

administrative-claim-4.06.20

But little good this future event does us today, looking at this.  The crust of a sandwich is making him bleed from the gums. Our conversation at lunch? “Do you think we should buy a tent?”

Wrote a complaint to FEMA; faxing tomorrow.

On April 1st, 2020, completely fed up with the way we have been treated,since March 19, 2020, we drove down the deserted streets to leave a Petition for an Emergency Writ of Mandate (see below link for a copy) at the dropbox of Dept #47, which is the only judge’s chambers open. I had to hand it to a guard who took it inside. I had no stamp, no receipt, not even a smile from this guy or the slightest assurance he didn’t put it in the trash. He never even acknowledged me.  I was so creeped out that I took a photo to prove I was there. Strange times we live in.

 

 

However, the failure of the Court # to answer with a human being (only a recording) is rather perturbing, so today I braved the post office lines to mail an amended copy. Sent the same to the DHS County Administrator and an Administrative Claim to the County Board of Supervisors (see both above).

 

 

The County has a “policy” of not letting folks stay longer than 21 days in the same motel, so they expect us to leave a day, sleep the night in the SUV and then come back in to a NEW room. Or I can go to this SPECIAL motel with “non-congregate” units.

Nah, this is not happening. He is safe HERE or you can cut the red tape to put us back in our RV until this Shelter-in-Place is lifted.

This room, Skyriders Motel room #142, has had ONLY our germs in it for 19 days. This is a pandemic. There is a germ out there that kills people in my husband’s group: 68 years old, liver cancer diagnosed 9.16.19 by UCSF’s liver transplant unit, and he had pneumonia in 1999 and had to have a tube put in to suck liquid out.

I had already spoken to the manager and he said yes, of course we could stay. He even said, there’s a pandemic going on. While I was on phone with the Navigator when he called on the room phone and said the social worker had just called and told HIM we weren’t getting a voucher for his establishment.

I have had my husband in self-isolation since mid-February in our RV in Sherman Island County Park outside Rio Vista. But still Sacramento county. On 3.19.20 the Governor closed all the campgrounds. My RV had a fuel pump failure. Its still in campground 70 miles away. And these people insist we just can go to some rundown motel they are filling with ENCAMPMENT residents who have tested positive or been exposed to COVID-19.

Please consider donating to a week’s stay at Skyriders Motel ($595) until I can get this in front of a judge.

www.paypal.me/nomadicproud

 

To read the full timeline and/ or the legal paper I have already written and mailed, please go to the front page of this site @  www.thepandemic.home.blog 

This is what I have shown the County people that we are dealing with. Greg takes meds for his liver that thins his blood. He hit his head on the hood of the car three months ago and it bled so profusely, we rushed to ER. Its happened many times since then. The doctor showed me how to stop the bleeding (eventually) and keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected. The doctor told me it may never heal (because of the cancer) and I will have to deal with this until he dies.