San Diego Housing Commission from the perspective of a person needing thier help.

The San Diego Housing Comission Has a waiting list for anyone needing section 8 affordable housing, the wait time is over 8 years. I signed up for the section 8 wait list in 2007 , this is when I learned that I had Thyroid cancer. I had forseen a possible financial problem since I had no savings and my ex didn't pay support. As I suspected, a few years later I was in complete finacial ruin and my landlord had asked my daughters and I to leave. We went homeless and began to live from couch to couch so that the girls would not have to live in the car. The state didnt find us as homeless as we stayed on other peoples couches. I begged the department of human services for help as well as the Veterans Administration. Months and much aggrevaation later and with the help of an EDD employee, I got some work. Three part time jobs, and then was able to get Jewish family services and Saint Vincents De Pauls Veterans program sistered up and they helped me get into a San Diego housing commission appartment in my childrens neighborhood. Del Mar Unified School District. Here is what is odd, I had to qualify to show that I had substantial income to move in here, but there are many minorities who are living here at 400 dollars a month and I am asked to pay 1570 a month. I asked my landlord if I can get her to reduce my rent since my income has changed froom 3000 a month to 600. I need her help. she was so cold and calous that I cannot talk to her anymore. She has no intention of helping me find out what needs to be done to get my section 8 sooner. I am a veteran, I have worked my butt off for years, and because I am an upper white class looking woman I feel that I am not getting taken seriously within the system. My cries for help are left unheard because I dont need an interppreter. How dare the San Diego Housing commission not rent to the homeless when they have availlabe units as this unit was open for three months, it seems the qualifying standards are very narrow for these units. I had to meet low income requirements but I had to prove that I made three times the rents. I also had to pay a 25 dollar credit check even though I told them I was homeless and my credit was ruined. why keep taking money from a person who has nothing. I just want a fresh start and the system is making it completly impossible to meet all of the many program requirements to be elidgablle for help. I dont get it. Anybody out there have simular problems?

Veteran and his spouse with cancer needs shelter and medical care!

I keep seeing this couple on the side of the road with a sign. asking for help, so I stopped. I am veteran who has had cancer and I was homeless just after while recovering , I have two children, but I survived. This couple, is a young veteran and his wife. They are homeless, she has Ovarian cancer which she claims , it has spread into her upper abdominal cavity. They are homeless and begg for change 1/2 a block from a VA Medical Facility. VA service are too slow, he is waiting for a disability approval and VASH, but resources are too slow. I do not have room here to help nor the resources but I thought If I could reach out , someone could help them. Can you help provide shelter and treatment to these people if I bring them to you? Call Precious Cargo- 619-674-0110 http://honestad-vise.blogspot.com/

Employment Development Department (EDD) offers training to improve job skills to the underworked in San Diego.

Over the last three weeks I have toggled back and forth between VA EDD Representative  to New Horizons Admissions Counselor, I  am a veteran and I have tried repeatedly to utilize the resources that are supposed to be available. My first issue comes up when we discuss intelligent people. It is very frustrating to talk to someone behind a counter who does not appear to have your best interest heart, to make a matter worse is when the person does not know in detail how resources work or what resources work best for the individual in question.

 

After toggling between the VA counselor and the New Horizons rep (Education Counselor), I was just instructed to go back to the EDD located on University Ave and seek my “case worker” .  Honestly ? Case worker?  Was I issued one? I remember vaguely , ah yes, her…….

 

Over 8 months ago, I went to the One Stop Career Center located on University Ave in San Diego , California. As I entered the building and appropriate floor I was not greeted right away as the elderly lady was preoccupied with matters on her desk. After standing blankly at the counter for a few minutes, she acknowledged me with a glance up and a quick statement “Just sign your name there and we will call you” attitude.  I signed my name and sat, as she had instructed, after twenty minutes of waiting she called me to the counter and asked if I had been there before, she took my driver license  made a copy and issued me a yellow card and instructed me to wait further to talk to a guidance counselor.  I waited another 34 minutes and spoke to a woman,  who almost immediately referred me over to the VA representative. She began with saying she didn’t’ know why I was referred to her since I was a veteran.  She instructed me to go to the imperial ave One Stop Career Center on Imperial Ave. because they had many representatives there and because I could go any day of the week. She gave me a brief tour, told me that I could use the facilities anytime for computer work, faxing or classes on jobing.   Was she my case worker????  I will tell you this tomorrow when I go to see her, but for now  let me tell you that between New Horizons employees getting ill, and passing around the customer, or the case overloading whatever it is , let me make things easier for everyone.

EDD needs to update their page/website/program to include the following:

• Training request- online submission- I should not receive ten thousand calls from schools all over the country , I should receive a call from my case worker who should then contact the local training provider and provide my eligibility authorization, the local training provider then should call me the client and let me know when I should arrive for training orientation.This would improve the process
• Requirement Eligibility - online screening
• Career counselors at EDD initiate contacts at each eligible client (the unemployed worker) and the training provider listed on their site to locate appropriate training processor for their client .
• Create  online support for the education process.
• Make the center truly ONE STOP better yet make it LAST STOP! By increasing the incentive to employ through the center
• Creating a more supportive network that starts with treating the unemployed worker as the client.
• database houses client information and auto fills for applications qualified for.
• client is notified  which services will be automatically provided.
• daycare- does the state currently insist ALL daycares and after school providers receive deductible for accepting low income  or elderly, disabled students?
• transportation- low cost auto sale or leasing besides public transportation
• resume assistance/training
• food- Calwin link
• housing-HUD Affordable Housing  HPRP
• Living expenses - Charity links
• training-
• medical
• Career Counselor should be  the first line support while on EDD
• Remove all of the advertisement links- instead of all of these outside distractions, educational training offices calling like mad, and the credit card repair companies, just because I opened a link on EDD this is WRONG!

That’s about it for now as I have a family to mind.

Trying to track down my check, use the online tele cert, find a job using the One Stop Career Center or finding help at the depatment of human service is like having two full time jobs!

Crazy

How was your experience, I would love to hear what you feel could be done to make the Unemployment transition move smoother –.

~Pamela~

Amen EBT! It Is About Time. I can feed them on the road now!

 

A slice of freedom, Thanks to people like Supervisor Pam Slater- Price who said to Fox 5 today “Many seniors and disabled people live in apartments without kitchens, making it difficult for them to prepare their own meals, I know a lot of seniors who live in single-room occupancy dwellings who don't have many of the amenities we assume people have in a normal apartment.” People in my shoes and the elderly can get help, delivered, or through a drive threw. 

I am glad to hear that even though some people are bless they still consider the difficulty and hassle it is to get through the system to become self sufficient. The team that got the approval for the EBT being used at some fast food places will be nice if used as proposed.   Click for more about government programs and services.

I am a single parent of two preteens. Recently we were displaced due to Cancer, a job loss and then the incumbent eviction, either way we ended up on food stamps. It took many long hours of paperwork, follow-up and waiting for my turn at the Department of Health and Human Services, at least 5 per trip and they do not serve cookies and milk while you wait.

My kitchen has been reduced to a refrigerator which has two shelves, half a counter ,  four cabinets,a sink and a old gas stove. It is approximately 8x10. The kitchen is inconvenient to cook in.

Both of my daughters have active afterschool activity agendas, sometimes we do not get home until 7 or 8 pm at night, we leave for school which is 20 miles north, in our home town of Carmel Valley.  It will be nice to stop for pancakes in the mornings since we now live in oak park where, the drunks fight nightly and then the bullets fly wildly… . I am please to hear that I can feed them quickly while on the road .  Honestly the less time any child lives in these conditions the better.  The best way to get them out of these conditions is to feed them well, so they can absorb at school and move out via education. 

Amen I say to the people in high places, you have just answered one of my prayers. You have allowed a single parent to provide for her children in todays demanding social environment,

PSorrentino