Category: poverty

Subsidized Child Care 

I have never been inside the CCRC office in Chatsworth, although I have referred about 600 families here.

Child care is essential for working pare t’s as employers tend to frown on kids being in the office – and child care is expensive.  

The Los Angeles City Parks and Recreation after school care is $30 a week. Once school is out that price jumps to  $100 a week from 7am to 3pm, and then an additional $30 ! Week for 3pm to 6pm.  So… 130×4.33 

So tired 

Today at work I probably sat at my desk for maybe 10 minutes. I was so tired by the end of the day that I couldn’t remember if I had told my co-worker I was tired.
Since July 4th was yesterday we assume that is automatically Christmas season so we tried singing Christmas songs to keep me awake but I don’t think it worked.
Please do not ever think that the people in the back office of the welfare office don’t care about you. Please don’t think that their jobs are easy either. My brain hurts from all the thinking and now I have to take a nap

Internet at the library

Library cards are free. Public libraries are funded with our taxes. You don’t have to pay an entrance fee at the door nor do you have to pay to borrow a book a movie or even a puppet. there are however, late fees. I know this because I paid $33 just today.

Possibly the greatest thing about the modern Public Library System are the free access to Internet abilities on the public computers. These computers allow you to pay bills check email apply for jobs and then Los Angeles County you can go online and look at the status of your public assistance benefits.

While I prefer the convenience of a smartphone and the " Obama phones" are available, they Obama phones ( really they are low income lifeline phones) are not so reliable.

Public libraries are accessible to everybody, even my six-year-old daughter was how to get onto the internet.

E.B.T. and @CapitalOneCafe ATMs

If you dont like banks, or getting dressed up,  and prefer working digitally with little human interaction, then you might be banking at @CapitalOne. I do, but mostly because they let me put a photo on a credit card 4 years ago(…but whatThe ever).

So it came to my attention that folks with EBT cards who wanted to pull put the cash benefit to pay rent or other bills through their bank accounts had a problem.

Capital One only has 1  brick and mortar store with an ATM that you could deposit cash into. This ATM was in Santa Monica. Finally Capital One opened up a branch and the Americana at Glendale. But then the problem happened that their ATM machines would not read the EBT cards even though it had the “Quest”God symbol on it. EBT card holders had to walk down the street to Bank of America to withdraw their money and pay a $3 surcharge for the privilege, then walk two blocks back to Capital One where they could deposit the cash into their bank accounts. I do not know about you but walking around with a couple hundred dollars and cash in my pocket would make me feel very nervous.

Finally they fixed it and the Capital One machines read the cash benefit amounts from the EBT card.

The next goal should be using two cards to pull money from the EBT account and depositing it into the bank account without having to pull the physical cash out and put it back into the machine

LAPD & ICE in LA

Immigration raids I’ve been happening and everyone’s concerned.

This is information from one of my neighbors.

“​Just want to share some information that I learned at a staff meeting today. LAPD and Congressman Cardenas office spoke at this meeting regarding immigration relations. Here are the highlights…

  1. LAPD does not get involved in asking for immigration status and doesn’t care. If you have a warrant pending they will take u in if youre an immigrant or not.
  2. Some parents have stopped sending their children to school out of fear.
  3. LAPD is upset because ICE are using uniforms that say POLICE on it. Chief Beck has asked their dept to remove it and they have failed to comply.
  4. In the last 2 months ICE has made about 60 detains just in the San Fernando Valley.
  5. It is true that they have gone to Home Depot to make detains. Usually they are going after someone in particular but whoever is around has a chance to be detained.
  6. Some kids have been put into Foster homes because parents have been deported. They suggest to have paperwork done stating who you leave legal custody to to watch your kids. Some families are having their kids get dual citizenship just in case.
  7. Under Obama there was a 2 tier system when going after immigrants. Tier 1 were the Felony crime offenders and Tier 2 had less charges like a misdemeanor or DUI. Under new administration there is no distinction. They consider a criminal a criminal.
  8. If you have any questions or need guidance on legal representation or saw something thag didnt seem right call Councilman Tony Cardenas office at 818-221-3718 
  9.  If youre illegal and have pending anger management courses or DUI or anything that the court has asked you to do and havent…GO TAKE CARE OF IT before it becomes a warrant so there is no reason to pick you up.
    Hopefully this info will help someone!”_ Fran Fuentes