Can we keep the good news coming in for this family and get maybe one or two more donations in tonight ? https://youcaring/help-a-neighbor/please-say-thank-you-with-a-small-donation/242042 Tony and I first met when I picked his name totally randomly from a mailing list. The mailing list was for a UK pop group we both liked from back in the 70’s. I picked Tony because like me he was on AOL and I thought it would be fun to chat about the group on there. We quickly became friends, both of us having a love of similar music and chatted most nights. It was after wed been chatting for about 6 months that Tony hinted about having stuff going on at home . I told him that if he needed to talk about it then I was a good listener and for some reason he opened up to me about things that he had not been able to talk to others about. I learnt that since his mum died from cancer a couple of years earlier he’d been trying to care for his father and learning disabled brother and had 2 little elderly Chihuahuas they had rescued as young dogs . I learnt he was also suffering with back problems and this and the fact he was unable to work the overtime his work wanted him to, because of his families growing, he was having problems with his boss at work. They had also fallen behind with the household bills and the house was in receivership. He had a relator trying to get them more time in the house and they managed to get them a couple of extensions and were looking for alternative accommodation for them but none was to be found and they lost their home to foreclosure when Tony also lost his job . This left them with nowhere to live and for part of each month they would live in a hotel room, but for the rest of each month they had to live on the streets in their car. Tony went to see social services and explained about needing to care for his brother and father. Social services told him he could get a job and they would send careers in to look after his family .That is OK though if you have a home for them to be looked after in, Tony didn’t. Social services weren’t interested though and said if he did get a permanent street address then he might be able to get benefit for staying at home and looking after his family. He must have had a street address for 3 months before he could be paid for this though. He also asked about section 8 housing but was told the waiting list was closed , so he couldn’t even get on a waiting list for it .The relator who had been helping them was also still searching for something that would be affordable for them to rent and Tony also enquired about several housing schemes but they were either full or weren’t available . During this time we kept in touch by text or online when Tony was in the hotel or could use the internet at the library. The weeks spent living in the car was very hard for them. During these times I was the only one Tony had to turn to for emotional support and many times it was that support and knowing his family needed him that kept him going. Many many times Tony would go without eating for days at a time then maybe just having a bag of potato chips or a chicken sandwich . He would always make sure his brother and father had something like a burger though and always makes sure his dogs were well cared for. They endured all weathers out in the car, baking hot sun in the summer and freezing cold nights during the winter. In the summer they would spend the days in the shade under a big tree in their local park trying to keep everyone cool. I remember one winter night Tony sending me a text saying his dad was all tucked up under a couple of blankets , his brother was sleeping under a couple of blankets , the dogs had a couple of blankets tucking them up in their beds and he was shivering and cold because there was only one thin blanket for him . This is so typical of Tony … he doesn’t matter but his family and 2 little dogs mean everything to him and always come first . One night they were parked up at the side of the road and in the early hours of the morning the car parked behind him burst into a ball of flames with no warning at all . As you can imagine Tony was terrified and his only thought was to get out of there and get his family safe before their car caught fire too. He drove round the corner out of harm’s way and watched all the emergency services rushing to the scene . They never found out why it happened or if anyone was in the car but Tony often has terrible dreams about it happening to them and them being trapped inside a burning car , especially when they were spending time living in their car . Tony’s father also was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had to have part of his bowel removed and follow up appointments. Tony dealt with all this though, even coping with his dad having a colostomy bag whilst they were living in the car. Just sit and imagine what those times must have been like for them, 3 of them trying to survive out there in the car. Think of all we take for granted that they wouldn’t have and think.. Could you have coped , could you have kept your sanity and then realise what a toll this took on them all mentally , emotionally and physically Remember also all the lame excuses people come up with for dumping the dogs we spend so much time trying to save from death , even through all this Tony stood by his 2 little dogs and wouldn’t have anyone else caring for them because he wanted to make sure they were loved and cared for and because he needed them with him and his family to keep them going and to help get them through the bad times when his dogs seemed like the only ones that cared about them . When one of his dogs died suddenly and unexpectedly one night Tony was heartbroken and for about a week after went into a very black depression where not even his family or me could reach him, but he managed to climb back out of it again and a couple of months later they gave a very loving home to another younger rescue Chihuahua who they still have with them today. Through all this time I was just a friend who was there for them . Someone who would listen and not judge and who gave emotional support . I would always try and encourage and give hope when all Tony wanted to do was give up and end it all. This horrible black depression descends on Tony and he just can’t see the point of going on living his miserable life. At these times I’m often here till about 4am UK time trying to reach through the blackness and give him some hope back and a reason to keep going, to keep trying and to not give up. Sometimes I can’t even reach him through the blackness and it gets so hard. At times I’d give anything to be able to just hug Tony and tell him everything is going to be OK. So many times it feels like he’s breaking into a million pieces and I’m the gaffer tape wrapped round him trying to hold all those pieces together. Then one Christmas I sat waiting and waiting on Christmas Eve for Tony to come online. It got to about 4am UK time and still no Tony. I knew this meant they hadn’t made it back to the hotel. Tony’s brother’s money comes in on the 3rd of each month and the holidays at the end of the month were always so hard for them because money was always very low by then. I sat there feeling so heartbroken thinking of them cold and lonely huddled in their car feeling so alone and unloved. No one should ever spend Christmas like that!!!!!! It just seemed so wrong for me to be going to bed, sleeping nice and cosy and getting up to presents the next morning. I didn’t know how on earth I was going to be able to have our family Christmas, and eat a big dinner and celebrate when I knew my dear friends were having such a miserable time over in LA. I got to the bottom of the stairs and just couldn’t go up them , everything was so wrong . I had to go back and write a message for Tony , even though I thought he wouldn’t see it , telling him how heartbroken I was and that someone would be thinking about them and shedding tears for them . I also told myself too that the last thing Tony would want is to make my Christmas a miserable one and that I simply must try and get through the next day as best I could . When I’d done this I managed to go to bed and got through the next day somehow but my friends in LA were never far from my thoughts . When Tony eventually managed to get back to the hotel after New Year they were on their last legs, barely surviving. Tony told me that they had gone to the Church that gave them food on Christmas Eve but the demand had been so great that they had closed early because they ran out of supplies. This meant they had nothing to eat over Christmas too. My heart broke all over again and I could have sat and sobbed my heart out for them all. It was then that I vowed that never ever would they spend another holiday like that. I just would not let it happen. The following December is when I asked Tony if he would let me do an online fund raiser to make sure they had their hotel room through the holidays. I was the one who asked him to let me do it and he was dead against it. Not many knew of their situation and how they had to live. Tony felt like he had failed and was a worthless bum because of how he lived and was very embarrassed by it and ashamed. He said he didn’t want everyone knowing his business and his life being posted all over the internet. I really wanted to do this for them though and wasn’t taking no for an answer and as we talked about it I persuaded him to let me do it so long as I handled everything and collected the money in my pay pal and sent it over to them to cover the room and so long as no names or location or other details were given out. As well as being a very private person it was a fear of getting his brother taken into care if the wrong person saw the fund raiser was for them that made him ask this . I respected his wishes and said yes I would do that and very reluctantly he let me do that first fund raiser and it made sure he had a room for Christmas and New Year that year . After this I did fund raisers to make sure they had a room over other holidays when they hadn’t got the money themselves . Then they were dealt a devastating blow when Tony’s dad suffered a stroke which affected his swallowing ability. This meant his dad suffered repeat bouts of Pneumonia and needed to be tube fed. He was in hospital for 3 months before he died. During this time Tony was a constantly by his bed side. He found a hotel room right near the hospital and had to leave his brother and dogs to stay with his dad and keep going back to check on them. Every day for 3 months he did this, stayed with his dad right from early morning until he settled down for the night in the evening, splitting himself between the hospital and his brother and dogs back at the hotel. He’d message me on Facebook via his phone from his dads bedside and ask me about treatments they were wanting to do and other things they’d said about his dads condition and I’d explained to him and help him understand his dads care and condition . When he returned to the hotel at night he’d often be up all night worrying about his dad and how they’d cope if his dad didn’t make it. Many times the nurses at the hospital would ask if he was Ok and remark how he looked more exhausted than his dad did. He knew he was all his dad had though and he made sure no matter how exhausted he was he was there both for his dad in the hospital and for his brother and 2 little dogs back in the hotel. I also worried that if his dad didn’t pull through that it might be more than even I could get him through. One day I came online and there was the message I’d dreaded seeing, his dad could fight no more and Tony had watched him take his last breath whilst I’d been in bed sleeping. To this day I still don’t know how I got them through the weeks that followed that. To make things worse Tony had to apply to be his brother’s legal guardian now and all his benefits had to be recalculated. With this being their only source of income and Tony not knowing when it would be paid or how much they would get paid whilst it was calculated, it became a huge worry for them. I knew there was no way they’d survive out in the streets in their car so again I turned to doing a fund raiser to help them through the months that it was being recalculated . Please remember these fundraisers have always been a way I can keep a friend safe and it’s been me asking for peoples help to do this … not Tony expecting others to pay for their hotel room . It took them 4 months to calculate his brother’s new benefit. So the time Tony and his brother should have been grieving and learning to cope with his dad’s death was actually spent worrying how on earth they were going to survive and worrying when their next lot of income was going to come in. Thankfully the fund raiser kept them afloat during these months and I was able to send a little over to help myself too . Although the money started coming in regularly again it was not enough to keep them in a room in the hotel all month and they were both still struggling to come to terms with his dad not being with them . Tony was barely holding himself together most of the time and struggling to cope ,especially as he’d never really had a chance to grieve properly . It was this that made me decide to carry on doing the fund raisers because I knew they wouldn’t cope living out in the car on the streets and also the car wasn’t running very well . Since losing their home they had desperately tried to hold onto their most precious belongings in a storage unit . They paid for it every month even though it meant they had to spend more time living out in the car each month . With their income being reduced following their dads death they were unable to pay for it anymore and all their belongings inside ended up being auctioned off to the highest bidder and then sold on E bay . This was another devastating blow for them. As time went on and their car ran worse and worse it got to the stage where Tony daren’t even take it on the freeway because he was worried it would suddenly break down on them . It had a terrible oil leak too and the engine smoked and smelt of burning when he tried to drive it . Of course this brought back memories of what happened to that car parked behind them that night and he became even more scared to use the car .He got a mechanic to look at it for him and they said it was the cars head gasket that had blown and that it would cost up to $2000 to repair it . I knew this meant the car was no longer a viable option for them to live in and again decided to carry on trying to help them with the fund raisers . Some people say to me … how long are we expected to keep paying for their hotel room ? My reply to this is … that they choose whether to donate or not so that is up to them . I just try and help a friend in need , nothing more than that . I don’t put any time limit on how long I help a friend less fortunate than myself and all I do is ask for help from others to keep them safe and off the streets because I care about them . As a true friend to someone your there for them as long as they need you to be .. Well in my book anyway. I add the full amount donated to the total available to be sent over to them regardless of the fact that when you donate $10 only $9.31 gets put into the pay pal account once fees have been taken off … I cover all those pay pal fees myself and the full amount is sent over .. when it runs out it comes out of my bank account .. which no isn’t very big and yes is often into my overdraught .. but hey I have a bed to sleep in and food to eat and 4 walls and a roof to make me feel safe and secure … they will lose all that if they can’t hold onto their room . Knowing Tony and what he goes through and the things he misses out on has made me realise that some things in this life are more important than material possessions and are taken for granted by most of us all the time . Its these things that matter most in life and everyone should have them . If I can help a friend to be safe and secure and eat at least once each day and have a bed to sleep in and a bathroom to use when they need to and to know at least one person cares whether they live or die , then I will do everything in my power to achieve that and these fund raisers are just a part of that . Please if you know of any help this family could take advantage of let me know . Tony has tried reaching out for help and we continue to do this . Last month he reached out to a local group that helps the homeless and had several housing schemes on their web site , but he was told that they don’t do any affordable housing and all they could do was give him numbers for homeless shelters . He’s also filled in an online form to apply for benefits yet again last week but hasn’t heard anything back from them . He has tried to phone his department for human services many many times but the line is constantly busy and you can’t get through . He IS trying to find help out of this situation .. but if no one is willing to give them the help they need then it’s so hard when every time you try and find that help it gets you no where . It gets very disheartening and at times Tony just thinks what’s the point , no one’s going to help us … but we are keeping trying to find that someone that I am sure MUST be out there somewhere . Please also take time to listen to someone who helps the homeless talk about addressing their needs and fighting homelessness .. socialbutterflyguy/mark-horvath-on-fighting-homelessness/ Please give whatever you can to help this deserving family stay off the streets ,even just a $1 donation WILL HELP and be another dollar closer to keeping them safe for another month . Thank you to you all , we can never thank everyone enough xxxxxx
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:54:00 +0000
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