Aidpage

To the attention of:

Barack Obama, US President;
Jerry Brown, Governor of California;
US Senators from California: Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein;
US Representatives from California: Adam B. Schiff, Anna G. Eshoo, Barbara Lee, Bob Filner, Brad Sherman, Brian P. Bilbray, Dana Rohrabacher, Daniel E. Lungren, Darrell E. Issa, David Dreier, Dennis A. Cardoza, Devin Nunes, Doris O. Matsui, Duncan Hunter, Edward R. Royce, Elton Gallegly, Fortney Pete Stark, Gary G. Miller, George Miller, Grace F. Napolitano, Henry A. Waxman, Howard L. Berman, Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, Jackie Speier, Jane Harman, Jeff Denham, Jerry Lewis, Jerry McNerney, Jim Costa, Joe Baca, John Campbell, John Garamendi, Judy Chu, Karen Bass, Ken Calvert, Kevin McCarthy, Laura Richardson, Linda T. Sanchez, Lois Capps, Loretta Sanchez, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Lynn C. Woolsey, Mary Bono Mack, Maxine Waters, Michael M. Honda, Mike Thompson, Nancy Pelosi, Sam Farr, Susan A. Davis, Tom McClintock, Wally Herger, Xavier Becerra, Zoe Lofgren;
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I have never been on unemployment or SSI.  I have never (and neither has my family) been a burden to the state, but I feel I will do soon.  My husband foolishly, after settling a worker's comp claim 13 years ago, has only worked for about the past 1 1/2 years and so did not claim disability.  We adopted a child from the state of California as our way of "giving back".  Our child is a joy.  I work full time as a speech-language pathologist in a low income school, in an impoverished area. I have been a therapist for 13 years.  Speech language pathologists do not get forgiveness on their loans, only teachers do.  I am considered a teacher by my district, school and pay scale, and the union I feel compelled to belong to.  I went to school for six years and got my master's for this job.  We live in a very modest condo, have two average old cars and never go on vacation.  We are not living the good life.  I have had my student loan in deferrment primarily because of my husband not working.  I now have to start paying.  Income based payments are around six hundred dollars a month!  The formula did not take into account where we live, a very expensive part of the country, or the cost of living here.  Paying this amount will put my family into severe hardship.  Like so many other educators, I went bankrupt last year.  I am not behind on my house payments, and never have been, but an old equity line looms in the darkness like a picture of Dorian Gray, rearing it's head and keeping me up at night.  I know I am not alone.  I cannot refinance the loan because of my financial situation.  We've got to the point where there is nothing left to cut back.  I know I am not alone in this situation.  I find it terrifying that the free food program we have at my school is something I will need soon once I start making these payments.  What can you do as my president, my governor or my reps do to help me? and do you even care?

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Post Open Letter to your Elected Representatives

I am not here to look for aid, simply because I don't believe any exists. If you think someone will rescue you from your troubles-don't bother. I know better. My family & I have worked our tail-ends off, prayed, sought out support, offered what we had to others, applied for, fought for, done everything in our power to provide for our family and it hasn't amounted to a hill of beans. It's a pathetic, corrupt, self-centered, evil world we live in & most of us have to find a way just to survive. Sad, but true. My story-briefly-hey, its a good read; I was born into dysfunction-moved 25x by the age of 16-Became a teen Mom, the father bolted- later married a Doctor who turned out to be a rage/alcohol addicted liar- divorced w/ 3 kids- got NO Settlement. Remarried. Had a critically ill baby. Required major surgeries. Later diagnosed w/ DS-MR-AUTISM. Requires constant care. New marriage stressed by lack of support system, financial struggles include a year out of work. Teen year troubles,illnesses. (Fast Forward to present day).Though the oldest children obtain 4 yr degrees, all have some sort of chemical dependency. One is suicidal. One is already going through a divorce. Husbands salary cut in half forcing us into bankruptcy. We are losing our home anyday & have no idea where we'll go. We receive NO aid for our 13 y.o. son who's developmentally delayed & autistic even though he can't speak, doesn't understand danger, requires total care including being diapered. Plus he is now bigger than I am. I can't work -there is no care available for him. We live in lockdown for fear he will get out as he has in the past. Walked into a neighbors home last summer & was mauled by their pitbull.  Jumped into a lake & had to be pulled to safety. Family & friends have stopped inviting us over. Guess our 13 y.o. crapping his pants, stripping in their yard & obsessively playing w/ their electronics was too much for them. Hey, that's life. We all  have to figure it out on our own 'cause no miracle is going to make things any better.

We are a couple who work inthe disability field. We recentlyfound out our landlords are declaring bankruptcy and we need to move . We have poor credit and need to secure housing quickly. Can you all offer us advice on what we should look for and steps to take? WHat sorts of funding might be available? We were only giben 30 days to move

THanks Everything Twice

In this day and age and in this country you couldn't have told me that I wpuld wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat fearful of where I would be living the next day...but I do. It is as if the world has gone crazy.I work 2 jobs and it is not enough; there is no cushion in case of emergencies.Bankruptcy is looking to be a viable alternative.

My deceased father, child of share croppers, man with little or no education,homeowner,commercial property owner, would have shook his head in wonder...and shame.He who worked tobacco and cotton fields, he who came to NY and worked as a stevedore in the Bklyn Navy Yard would have asked where were the neighbors the helping hands the people who cared... where are they hiding? And where are those who have the where with all to help themselves.It is a world gone mad.Worse than the Jim Crow my father knew is the elitist attitude about money.Those that got shall have; those that not shall lose; so the Bible says and it still is news.

Hello! I have to admit, I'm doing better than some people on here that I've read about, I'm not going to make up some kind of sad sob story, I'm just going to tell you like it is.  What I need to do is to pay off 4 bills. I'm married, 16 years now, and I can't say that my husband is abusive or anything along that line.  We, especially me, have been VERY unhappy for about 6 years now. We have a 10 year old son, and a 21 yr old daughter from my first marriage that my husband took in as his own, to this day, and has made him a grandpa.  My problem is that I'm at the point that I'm so unhappy, depressed, (I do actually have medical problems such as these) and I need to be able to leave my husband and start my life over again.  There is no communication anymore, and we have known for years that we shouldn't be together.  It's really a financial thing that makes us stay together, and of course, our son.  We have 4 bills (besides a mortgage, which is in his name, and I just dont think that's the most important part right now to deal with), all of them are because of me, and only one of them is in his name.  I can't, though, just leave him stuck with the two bills that I've caused. I don't feel right doing that.  At the bare minimum, I really would need to pay off the one loan in his name, which is approximately $3,500, and a military credit card (he is retired air force, 23 years, been retired 3 years now) with a balance of $4000.00.  The other two, one is a credit card in my name only, for right about $3900, and a school loan of $7,000 that I've been paying on as much as I can for 20 years. Yes, 20 years!  My credit is terrible because of this. I wouldnt' be able to live on my own and pay these bills, dont have the credit for an apartment, so I'm stuck living where I am.  I am an LPN, which I've worked at some small office jobs here and there, though I've had my certificate since 2001. I HATE nursing, but, once I move out, that's what I'm going to have to do.  Where we live now, there are NO nursing jobs, we live in a very small town, and my husband is a contractor for the Army, so we can't just get up and move to a place where there would be work for me.  We actually started taking in foster children just over a year ago, something we wanted to really do, but also, there's the benefit of my being able to be home (because there is no work), and still get some kind of income.  It seems though that we can't get any foster children that end up staying for more than a month or two because of various reasons.  There isn't family to rely on financially, we have already had one bankruptcy.  The whole point is that I HAVE to leave. I can't live the rest of my life being as unhappy as I am(it goes pretty deep). But, because I'm unable to take care of myself (and my son if he chooses to come with me) money wise, and the fact that feel it would be really wrong to leave my husband with these 2 bills that are in his name, I have no choice but to stay where I'm at.  I need to pay off these bills, make sure my credit report is cleared up, and have just enough money to move on. I already know where I want to go, and there's a great chance that I'll already have a place to live, not to mention the job market for nursing is great.  ANY help paying these bills would be so fantastic.  I did manage to pay off one bill that was in my name, just this past October, so yes, I have been trying it on my own.  I just don't have the 2, 3 or 4 years to play with that it would take for me to pay these bills off.  My story sounds petty compared to some, but I just can't stay in a marriage where there is no love, communication, nothing. Ideally, I would love to be able to do this in about 6 months, though I know it could take upwards of a year, or probably 2-3 doing it on my own. Please consider helping me in any way, any amount possible.  Debt consolidation and another bankruptcy are not options anymore.  Any funds would go straight to bills, and this would be because I would prefer money orders already filled out to the companies that need paid (so you know I'm not getting the money).  Larger amounts of money, if I'm lucky enough to get that, I'm not sure how to go about getting it straight to the company besides sending it myself.  Right now, even amounts of a few hundred dollars is going to make a huge difference. Thank you so much for listening to my story, and if you're one of those that is lucky enough to help someone, whether its me or not, thank you.

Okay so I am so over my selfish pride that I am to the point of begging for help or assistance.  My husband and I have been laid off since March.  We have 2 little girls 5c and 3.  We have search for jobs high and low and yes there are jobs such as Mcdonald etc. and there is nothing wrong with that only it still doesnt pay our bills.  I have taken 2 pt jobs at fast food restaurants and with the cost of child care it really doesnt help much. We are on the verge of bankruptcy and losing our vehicle and our home.  We have sold everything we possibly can to stay afloat.  I just found out that yet again I am pregnant.  And not intentionally.l I was on birth control.  So while it is a blessing it also hurts.  We are going to lose our home and have to move.  All at Christmas time.  We have nothing to give our children now and nothing left to go on.  Hope is running thin.  I pray everyday that a miracle will happen and we can snap out of this but it hasnt happened yet. Please Please I beg you if you are one of the few that happen to be on top during these hard time please send some help our way.

I have lost everything. Being in the construction business and with the recession, I have lost my home, my cars, everything. I am fortunate enough to have a small income, and friends have let me stay in one of their bedrooms(they are facing foreclosure and the possibilty of losing everything as well). It is not like I am not doing anything. I am going to school for a nursing or PA degree. I applied for student loans and found that I owed on a student loan from years ago, and therefore can not receive any loans until it is paid. On top of that, I just found out I am being pursued by the IRS for tax money on the old business I owned. I filed bankruptcy, but taxes are not dischargable. I bought an old car and can not even get tags until some of the taxes are paid. I just can not seem to get ahead after paying my child support, etc.

I am a 47 year old single mother and grandmother. I have 3 grandchildren. My daughter passed 3 years ago so I have custody of them also. I was recently laid off for the third time in my life due to company closings. I have some much needed repairs to do around here and due to a bankruptcy i cannot get any funding and don't know which way to turn. My house does not have a heating system so we have to rely on electric space heaters to keep warm. I don't know where to turn to for help and I am at my wits end about this. I also have some serious plumbing problems that require immediate attention.

Here we go again - about the Health Care Reform... and why we need it:

"...the part of America's health care system that consumers like best is the government-run part.

Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high.

...68 percent of those in Medicare feel that their own interests are the priority, compared with only 48 percent of those enrolled in private insurance.

...Until the mid-19th century, firefighting was left mostly to a mishmash of volunteer crews and private fire insurance companies. In New York City, according to accounts in The New York Times in the 1850s and 1860s, firefighting often descended into chaos, with drunkenness and looting.

So almost every country moved to what today's health insurance lobbyists might label 'socialized firefighting.' In effect, we have a single-payer system of public fire departments.

We have the same for policing. If the security guard business were as powerful as the health insurance industry, then it would be denouncing 'government takeovers' and 'socialized police work.'

...The truth is that government, for all its flaws, manages to do some things right, so that today few people doubt the wisdom of public police or firefighters. And the government has a particularly good record in medical care.

Take the hospital system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the largest integrated health system in the United States. It is fully government run, much more 'socialized medicine' than is Canadian health care with its private doctors and hospitals. And the system for veterans is by all accounts one of the best-performing and most cost-effective elements in the American medical establishment.

A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that compared with a national sample, Americans treated in veterans hospitals 'received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.' The difference was particularly large in preventive medicine: veterans were nearly 50 percent more likely to receive recommended care than Americans as a whole.

'If other health care providers followed the V.A.'s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system,' Rand reported.

...But the biggest weakness of private industry is not inefficiency but unfairness. The business model of private insurance has become, in part, to collect premiums from healthy people and reject those likely to get sick - or, if they start out healthy and then get sick, to find a way to cancel their coverage.

A reader wrote in this week to tell me about a colleague of hers who had health insurance through her company. The woman received a cancer diagnosis a few weeks ago, and she now faces chemotherapy co-payments that she cannot afford. Worse, because she is now unable to work and has to focus on treatment, she has been shifted to short-term disability for 90 days - and after that, she will lose her employer health insurance.

She can keep her insurance if she makes Cobra payments on her own, but she can't afford this. In her case, her company will voluntarily help her - but I just don't understand why we may be about to reject health reform and stick with a dysfunctional system that takes away the health coverage of hard-working Americans when they become too sick with cancer to work.

...A public role in health care shouldn't be any scarier or more repugnant than a public fire department." 

Read the full article... 

"Long-term care constitutes a difficult and expensive challenge in any health system. But the American patchwork, full of cracks through which people fall, has a special problem with medical expenses of all kinds bankrupting couples.

A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

M. still helps her husband and, quietly, continues to live with him and care for him. But she worries that the authorities will come after her if they realize that they divorced not because of irreconcilable differences but because of irreconcilable medical bills...

'It's just crazy,' she said. 'It twists people like pretzels.'

The existing system doesn't just break up families, it also costs lives. A 2004 study by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, found that lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That's one person slipping through the cracks and dying every half an hour.

In short, it's a good bet that our existing dysfunctional health system knocks off far more people than an army of 'death panels' could - even if they existed, worked 24/7 and got around in a fleet of black helicopters."

I am a 52 year old woman who is disabled and is not able to work.  I would love to work but I have very poor health problems that prevent me from being able to.  I filed for SSD but have not been approved yet.  It's a very long process.  Anyhow, I have been living in my home for 12 years. since 1997.  Actually it's a doublewide trailer.  It was a lease to buy with 12% interest for 30 years.  I know it was dumb to agree to that but it was all I could afford to get into at that time.  Just 500.00 down.  The asking price was 45,000 including almost an acre lot. Which means all these years I've paid 534.47 and have paid so far 76,963.68 for a  1982 very used doublewide.  Well to make a long story short, the company that owned it went bankrupt this year without any warning and now the bank owns it.  My contract with the other company is no good and I've ultimately lost all that money.  The bank has made me an offer.  I have to buy it and close by the end of next week.  There asking price is $30,000.00 with $5,000.00 down with a 7 year loan.  It's a wonderul deal but I do not have 5,000.00 dollars.  We've had some hardships this year.  My daughters husband passed away on May 16th at the age of 26.  He left her 6 months pregnant with their 3 year old daughter.  The baby was born healthy this month August 14th.  What extra few bucks we can manage I help her out.  I need 5000.00 desperately.  I've prayed and prayed and I just don't know what to do.  I have to have a home.  I'm deathly afraid of being homeless What am I to do?  I only have a week to do this.  I have nothing of value to sell.  Any suggestions?    

We're finally in foreclosure and facing bankruptcy. The bank won't help, the government won't help, the house won't sell. So I guess that's it.

We will be joining the ranks of the renters in a couple months. I'll be glad and sad to say goodbye to our first and last house. We're not sure how or where we're going but we have to leave.

We live in Antelope Valley, CA. If anyone knows of a more than reasonable 2bdrm house for rent in the area please message me. We're not picky but hoping for a house with hard floors (for cleanliness) and a patch of grass for our 3 dogs.

Thanks for reading and best of luck to all those stuck in this horrible economy.

Hello.

My name is Kimberly Koch. I am a mother of 4 children. My husband and I have a 9 month old, a 3 year old, a 7 year old and a 15 year old. We live in Moorpark CA. In January 2009, my husband was laid off when his employer (Teledyene) laid off a bunch of people out of economic necessity. My husband has a PhD in Physics from UCLA and 8 years of industry experience.He has been applying to both industry and academic positions every day since he has been laid off. Every day. We have received so many rejection letters it is becoming very disheartening. My husband is very smart and has an extremelly good work ethic.He has a awesome education and a very postive employment history, so when I tell you that it's no fault of his that he hasn't been hired yet, it's true. We have lost our home to foreclosure, had our one car respossed, and finally were forced to file Ch7 bankruptcy. We tried to file for Ch 11 but the judge delcared that we did not have enough incoming money to pay the monthly CH 11 payment (if you know about CH 11 bankruptcy then you know that it doesn't wipe everything clean, instead, you are told how much to pay to the trustee on a monthly basis). So, we now are living with my Mom and Step Dad in their house. Counting all of us, there are a total of 8 people in their house now (all my family and my mom and step dad). It's chaotic. Yes, we are lucky to be able to lean on them on our time of need but we have been living with them ever since we lost our home which is about a year and a half ago. My husband was working 3 jobs (one full time job at Northrop Grumman and 2  temporary part time teaching jobs at community colleges). When the 2 temporary jobs finally ended (the budget at the community colleges were cut so they could no longer keep him on) all heck broke loose financially. We toyed with the idea of me going back to work, but with his education he brings in more money per hour than I ever could with my Biology degree so we decided that even though it was very stressful for all, he would find side work to keep us afloat and when he finally did, Northrop told him that they were unaware he was moonlighting and it is against company policy to do so which forced him to give up the side job in order to keep the full time job and not irritate managment at Northrop. So you can see why we finally lost the house, lost the car and filed for bankruptcy. We just could not do it, every which way we tried. We cut all expenses that could be cut and I mean all. So, here we are. Struggling to make it on a daily basis. Every week we run out of money and run out of gas. We need help. From the most desperate place in our hearts, it's just time for us to ask anyone and everyone for help. So, that's what I'm doing here. We do have food stamps, but not enough to get us through even 2 weeks with 6 people in my family to feed (we prepare our own food and my mom prepares food for her and my step dad and we have learned how to keep our food seperate, as tacky as that might sound, just to aviod any kind of turmoil that may come from us using eachothers food. My mom does not have enough money to help us out any other way than letting us stay in her home, which is enough of a sacrifice if you ask me. My mom and step dad are newly retired so income is tight for them as it is. Please help any way you possibly can. We have contacted any kind of resource available to us in Moorpark, like Community Action Agency and there resources are already being used by people already signed up with the agency so come my turn to go there what is available is usually only a bag or two of groceries. We have 4 sets of growing feet we need to put shoes on and four growing bodies we need to get clothing for and food for. I ask for assistance, this is my call for help. Please, contact me if you think you might be able to do so.