I Wonder If President Obama Has Ever Been Evicted

This country is supposed to be "land of the free, home of the brave." This country operates under a justice system where one is "innocent until proven guilty."

I wonder if President Obama was ever served with an eviction notice. I wonder if he ever felt the fear of losing his home and perhaps having to live in his car.

Right now, for my son and I, freedom has contingencies attached to it. And bravery? How does one be brave in the face of execution by eviction? How does a single mother explain to her child that the words on this piece of paper are enough to take away our home? How does a single mother struggling to survive explain to her son about injustice, and abuse of power, about retaliation and about the bad people in this world who have nothing and will never have nothing because they are just bad, bad people?

Freedom means sleeping in peace. Freedom means waking up knowing my child is safe. Freedom is having a chance to make my son's dreams come true.

Those contingencies? They are landlord references, credit reports, criminal records (or not in my case), they are exceptions to the rules and regulations like if my son can finish fifth grade at his school so I don't have to traumatize him any more than he has been in the past six months, having enough money to move and having enough money to feed my son and clothe him.

Bravery. My son has been brave. He has weathered the possibility that we could have been homeless - all based upon lies. I don't know how he did that. I fell apart because I lacked bravery and courage to withstand the "weapons in the form of words" that were rocket-launched at my son and I; we were ambushed by the management company all because of the lies fed to them by an unstable and unbalanced woman, then sealed neatly in an envelope and delivered to me in my mailbox without explanation.

It was an execution on paper. That's what Notice of Termination of Tenancy is - an execution on paper. And where I live - you don't get a chance to defend yourself.

At all.

This management company took away my freedom to defend myself. They took away my right to prove my innocence. They took away my courage. They nearly destroyed me - and my child.

I am thinking right at this moment that I desperately need a break - a miracle if you will. I am consumed by the tremendous debt I carry - not unlike thousands of other people. I am sure the prayers to God are the same - help us, help our children. I know I am not alone.

But I am alone. It is just my son and I. I do not have family around me. I do not have the wealthy relative who will willingly give us money and wave a hand and say "don't worry about paying it back. I know you'll do the right thing."

I do not have wealthy friends who will reiterate the same.

I am alone. The debt has not been incurred by frivolous means. Statements show charges for groceries, for clothes, for those godforsaken car repairs, for school pictures and Christmas presents. There are no extravagant purchases. My ex-husband owes me close to $3,000 for non-child support stipulations spelled out very clearly in our divorce agreement. He has been chipping away at it. But had he been paying his half of what he agreed to do all along, I would not be in this financial black hole.

So now, that awful creatures that lurks in this financial black hole is reaching out its tentacles and wrapping themselves around me and threatening to choke the life out of me because on Friday, I received a call that my name came up on a list for a two-bedroom duplex here in town. I have been waiting for that call for nearly five years. But my elation was not there. I was gasping for breath as I was being choked by the financial octopus of debt -and fear.

I was, to say the least, blindsided by this good news. But I immediately felt despair because part of the paperwork to be filled out is a "landlord reference" which I know is standard, but I am terrified that the property manager will blackball me and I will not get the home I want so desperately. And get my son safe.

And there are variables. My 16 year old vehicle is beginning to break down little by little except that "little by little" has meant $500.00 out of my pocket within 3 weeks, 2 different times and now that pesky "check engine" light suddenly appeared like a supernova flash on my dashboard. My Honda Civic manual states it is a "malfunction control lamp" and further reading led me to a problem with one of the engine's emissions control. This is not surprising. The car is old (like me) and for all I know it's emitting some lethal gas into the atmosphere that will have the Save The Earth Police coming after me soon. Maybe that's not a bad thing?

But it is just another repair, another bill, and I am at the end of my rope. With no car, I cannot work. If I cannot work, I cannot move. And I cannot move, I can't get my son safe and try to piece back together everything that fell apart since July.

I prayed to God that we wouldn't get evicted. He answered my prayer but truly, the law prevailed because the property manager didn't have a case, it didn't have credible witnesses - or any witnesses at all - and it didn't have any hardcore evidence to support it's reasons for issuing me the Notice of Termination of Tenancy.

And now once again I feel shame and humiliation for thinking ahead that I now have to fight for this home that perhaps could be a new beginning for my son and I all because one person - one evil, vicious, soulless woman decided it would okay to steal what didn't belong to her and when I called the police to report the crime, she retaliated in the worst possible way with her lies - and the property manager believed her without ever hearing my defense. And since it never went to trial, I still never got a chance to defend myself.

I want this home. I want to get out of this awful place and away from the daily visits by the local police, away from the domestic violence and screaming and yelling and the trash left around the common areas because many of the people who reside in this place simply don't care about anyone - or themselves. I can't count how many times the police have taken people away from here - in the parking lots and out of apartments - in handcuffs. A woman left her two-year-son alone in the apartment because she wanted to go out. The fire department had to break down the door to get to the child. The child was clad only in a diaper and covered in its own feces. There are women getting beaten by their "baby's daddy" or by the "baby daddies" and won't report the violence out of fear, out of losing financial support, out of love. The SWAT team has been here a few times. One tenant was involved in a home invasion and the owner badly beaten and he was arrested here a few years ago. A rape occurred last year here - in a laundry room. I walked around with a baseball bats for months out of fear. I went to management and asked if perhaps security cameras could be installed in the laundry rooms for the future safety of tenants.

I was met with disdain and was told "you people don't get stuff like that."

I wonder if I had written to President Obama and asked HIM if he could arrange to have security cameras installed here. Would he have told me "you people don't get stuff like that?"

You people. I am a human being. So is my son. But somehow, the property manager who made that statement to me displayed a lack of concern as if I was nothing more than the bottom trash in a landfill.

You people.

Is this how they view us?

Frankly, if the police are called, I'm not sure exactly how management finds out unless they peruse the Cops and Courts section every day looking for transgressions by a tenant. I seriously doubt it. That would mean doing their job.

The tenant across the hall from me who started the nightmare from which I am still reeling - her own boyfriend was led out of here in handcuffs twice - arrested for assault and battery and defacing property and the second time he said he was going to kill himself in front of her. But he's still living here. And she has two kids who have been exposed to the countless domestics that have occurred within their apartment. And one of her sons is the one who stole my mail - and the tenant KNEW her son had stolen my mail because she admitted to it but she didn't give a shit. Her response was that she was going to beat her son and she told me to press charges so she could "lock her son up in a mental institution."

Nice mother. She ought to be locked up - not her son. Her son is a product of her and her actions and reactions and god only knows what she has exposed her children to in their young lives.

The walls are thin. You can hear everything. I hear my neighbor peeing every morning in the bathroom at the same time. I hear the same neighbor above me and next to me having sex. That's how thin the walls are. I don't explain to my son what the "noises" are. He doesn't need to know.

I understand this is common in many, many places.

But I have to get out so I can save my son. I want him to be safe above all else. I've told him there are more good people in the world than bad but all he has seen here is the bad.

And what does that say about the management company? It turns a deaf ear and blind eyes to the most serious situations as long as you pay your rent. Its philosophy is "if it doesn't affect you, shut up and don't complain." But yet there is a specific paragraph in the Occupancy Agreement about tenants' rights to "quiet enjoyment." Apparently, management's interpretation of that is far different than the tenants' interpretation. So instead, management distributes memos about "inappropriate disposal of chicken bones and diapers and trash," and makes statements like "this is your HOME. Take care of your HOME."

It is a double-edged sword. And management lies in wait to use it for any tenant who breaks the rules. But yet we are not allowed to defend ourselves.

I feel the fight going out of me but I think I have one last fight left. The one person who is most important person to me, the one person whom I love to infinity and beyond, the one person whom I desperately want to have a chance to find his niche in this world and be somebody and perhaps change the world and make his dreams come true:

My son.

It's always been about him because he is all I have in this world. There is no one to "take care of us," there is no one person in my life - or in my heart - that will rescue us and give us the life we want so desperately.

So I'm it. And my son is worth fighting for more than anything or anyone in this world.

And that's not being selfish - that's being a mother.

We need help in a big way. I just don't know how to reach out to strangers and ask. I know people have done it. But I don't know what to say: Help me save my son? His dad has colon cancer. His dad is only 46 years old. I don't know how much longer he will be on this earth. My health is teeter-tottery because of the severe emotional distress I've suffered for the past six months. I don't know what kind of damage lurks inside of me. I am afraid I will go to sleep at night and never wake up and that's how my son will find me.

I can't heal unless I can get out of here, relieve the awful financial burden I carry and get my son safe. The only saving grace is that he is doing very well in school. He is happy there, he has many friends. Kids are drawn to him like magnets. He has a heart of gold, he is compassionate and caring and kind. He reaches out to other kids when they need a friend. He is smart and wickedly funny. He has a thirst for knowledge and a million questions every day. He stares up at the sky and wonders if perhaps someday he will discover something new and amazing. He wants to work at NASA. When he tells me that, my heart does something extraordinary - it beats with the knowledge that perhaps I have instilled in him the ability to dream - and dream big.

And I want to make those dreams come true for my son.

But I need a fighting chance to do so and we need help.

Countdown To Eviction

9 days.

I didn't think too much about Nov. 18th today. My eviction file is sitting on my desk, It has taken on a life of its own: two snakes intertwined around each other just waiting to strike. My file contains the venomous poison of a cobra by virtue of the other tenant's lies against me; and the twisted, strangled squeezing feeling of hopelessness and despair that the management python of this complex left me with since July 2nd.

There is a genuine fear to thinking you are going to lose your home, especially when you have a child. It is unlike any fear I've ever known. I have always taken care of myself, paid my rent and lived my life. But when I had my son and realized he would be completely dependent upon me for many years, it turned my life upside down and inside out. Little did I realize how hard this life would be. And how hard I fought to protect my son from the evil people in this world.

I have not talked about the upcoming court date in front of my son. He is immersed in creating a book report, doing long division and asking me questions as to how the color gets into the lead of a colored pencil and how that portion gets in the wood that the pencil is made of. He asked me tonight if a gun is shot underwater, will its speed be the same as if shot above water? He wants to know why the planets line up symmetrically and why everything just works the way things do. I give him as best answers as I can. Sometimes  I have to look stuff up because I genuinely don't know the answer. I try not to blow off my son's questions because when I look at him, I see me. But I never had anyone to ask these questions of. I had to find it out on my own, by myself. But when my son asks me these deep, thoughtful, insightful questions, I am amazed that perhaps that need to know comes from me.

the need to know. Some people are just born with this inate burning desire to know, to possess knowledge, to ask questions just because.

It is obvious that the management company here lacks a vocabulary that consists of the words who what where when why and how.

Innocent until proven guilty. Nope. Not to these people. let's get rid of the white, college educated, above average intelligent WHITE tenant who has a job and doesn't sleaze off of the state and protect the minority tenant because if management tried to evict her, can you say discrimination lawsuit?

well, can you say reverse discrimination? I never in my life encountered this kind of situation. It has the appearance of reverse discrimination but I've not yet told the entire story but when all the pieces are put together, and the truth is laid out in neat rows, one will be able to clearly see reverse discrimination.

I try not to think about that. I try to think of my son's endless barrage of questions instead of what may be in 9 days. I can't imagine having to pack up my things in 24 hours and having a sheriff watch over me. I can't imagine getting in my car and not having a place to sleep. I can't imagine having to tell my son that his room will be the backseat of my jurassic park 16 year old car.

When you raise a child alone because you have no family around you and you become mother and father all rolled into one person, you tend to be braver and more courageous because you get used to facing everything alone.

But when I close my eyes at night, I pray that someone will rescue us. I pray that someone will come into our lives and take us away from this awful place and give us a real home. A place where I can heal and find serenity in a garden. A place where my son can laugh at the top of his lungs, and jump until the ground shakes - and no one will complain. I want to walk in my front door and never look down at my feet again. I want to be able to sleep without my baseball bat cradled in my arms. I want to not get up four and five and six times at night just to check my door.

I do not like to live in fear.It is eating me alive.

Fear is a flukey snarky hinky thing to live with. It can be innocuous (like fear of ants or creepy crawly things in general) or fear can be the intangible rope that squeezes the life out of you every single second you try to breathe.

Welcome to my world.

Countdown To Eviction

10 days.

In 10 days I will find out if my son and I will be homeless. I thought I lived in a country where I was innocent until proven guilty. Apparently, when you live in low income housing that is run by a management company who decides your fate based on false allegations, lies and hearsay, that is not the case. The management company which runs the low income apartment complex at which I reside became judge, jury and executioner on July 2, 2010 when my son and I were served with a Notice of Termination of Tenancy.

For seven and a half years, I have resided in a place that is the size of a cereal box. I have paid my rent on time every month for seven years. I have abided by the rules and regulations. I live in a town where the school system is one of the best in the state and for seven years, I have attempted to carve out a niche for myself - and most importantly - for my son because I know he will get the kind of education that will be the  foundation upon which he can build his future.

That future was put into jeopardy July 2, 2010.

Here in Massachusetts, there are two kinds of eviction: Non payment of rent which is self explanatory and "fault" which apparently the innocent until proven guilty application of law doesn't apply to this complex.

I am not a drug trafficker. I am not a a bank robber or a murderer or a terrorist. I do not have a criminal record. I am and have been a single working mother who has simply tried to keep a roof over my son's head, teach him right from wrong, and instill the importance of character, integrity and honesty in him so he may grow up to be a good, decent person.

I am a good mother. I would die for my son if I knew it meant keeping him safe. But when I was served with this eviction notice, I felt like I had failed to protect my son.

This eviction stems from another tenant who, when I met her this past February, raised all my red flags as a 23 year journalist - and as a mother. This is about someone whom I felt was a threat to my son.

This is about my gut instinct which proved me right.

And for that, I am being evicted.

I know my rights as a tenant. Just because I live in low income housing does not mean I should be stereotyped because of my address. I did not choose to live here - I had no choice. But I have a right to quiet enjoyment and more so, I have a right to protect my son.

And when I attempted to exercise those two rights, I was retaliated against not only by this other tenant, but worse by the management company.

The truth of what really happened has taken on a life of its own. It's become a living, breathing entity that I covet carefully as each day draws nearer to Nov. 18th.

The basis for my entire career was the truth. And in one moment, one person was able to convince management that I was this horrible person who did all these horrible things to her.

And not once did they question what they heard, what she said or bothered to come to me to find out the truth.

On November 18, 2010, I must put all emotion aside and tell the truth. I have evidence. I have photographs. I have witnesses.

I have the truth all neatly organized into manilla files.

But those files do not contain what has happened to my son and I inside ourselves. They do not contain the tears I have shed, the horrendous emotional stress my body has withstood since July. I carry around three blood clots in my leg that were discovered amid this nightmare. I lost 40 pounds without blinking. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating. I was spiraling down and my son was watching me come completely unglued because I am terrified we will be homeless.

Those files do not contain the hopelessness I felt and still feel because I failed to protect my son.

I may never heal. All I know is that I hate to come home. I still do not sleep peacefully. I lose track of time. I am forgetful. I wonder each day if I am simply not going to wake up one morning because the stress of this situation killed me and my son will find me dead in my bed. And management will simply close its file on me forever. Wouldn't they just love that.
My son locked himself in a school bathroom one day because he did not want to come back here to our apartment. He turns inward and becomes sullen and despondent when he walks into our building.

I am not the vibrant person I used to be. I am desperate to get out of here but I do not have the financial means to do so. I have no family within 100 miles of me. My friends are not able to take us in and I would not impose on anyone. But more important to me  - I refuse to uproot my son and cause him more trauma than he has already experienced in his 10 years, perhaps more so in the past six months.

I refuse to run. If I am going down, I am going down fighting.

And I am going to tell the truth on November 18th.

And when this is over, I am going to tell my story in hopes that no one will ever have to go through what my son and I are going through. I will tell my story so that every tenant understands that she or he have rights and that no management company has the right to destroy a life with one sweep of a pen.

I live in America. I am innocent until proven guilty. I have the right to face my accuser.

I will tell the truth.

And I would do it all over again just to protect my son.