My Mom (78) had a severe stroke 2 months ago and does not want me to visit her in the place she is in. Any advice?

Dear Scott, Thank you for updating us. I'm really worried about you. Please tell us whether you have re-applied for supportive housing.

Didn't go yesterday to the hosptial with the doorman. Waited around; he said he would go but couldn't. I went to work and got back late. Just waking up now, sleeping so much. Two weeks until the end of the month. Haven't looked on Craig's List at all.

The doorman is supposed to go today. They won't let me in, but maybe if he tells her I am downstairs she will talk with me on the phone. I keep trying to tell the guy that the social worker has to say it's ok before I can visit. He just doesn't seem to understand that.

To answer the above question, about college, I went to grad school and took out the loan max amount, for a year, which was 18500, plus a summer, plus a semester of law school. Never finished a single class. With interest and penalties it is so high; that was back in 1997-8, I don't even remember. I was expelled from law school after a semester, I went to a provisionally accredited law school, just packed up my car and moved everything out of the apartment my father was paying for in forest hills and drove to san diego california.

Very crazy, very crazy. I could show you my transcript and you would not believe how long I went to college for. 2 year school non matric, semester after semester kept dropping unofficially and my father kept writing checks. Lied to him.

Ok, doesn't matter now, that was so long ago. Mom had a stroke. The apartment is being sold. Mom is very sick from the stroke and that upset me very much. Talking with the social worker you can't get any definite answers. Only that no, she will not be going back to living the life she led before the stroke. She may get better but not to the point where she will be able to live like that again. It's so sad. I don't even remember exactly what she said, I think that's what she said.

Well that's a bit more information. Now my sleep cycle is all screwed up. I should have gotten into a cycle of getting up early and going to work early in the day. Maybe also because I took the risperdal medication before I went to sleep. It makes it so hard to get up.

So now maybe I'll go downstairs and see if the doorman is going to go today. Thanks again for everyone who took time to respond and to read this.

Well, lots of different posts with different questions. Yesterday I spoke with the social worker at the rehab center. Forever optimistic, said there was some improvement. But what she means by improvement, I don't know, maybe she just means mentally. That lag when I type is maddening. The neighbor and building worker did say she asked about me. Wanted to wish me a happy new years.

It takes time to respond to all these posts and talk about things that are going on, so maybe I will continue this later. Thanks for all the comments.

Please accept my apologies for my most recent post. I was way out of line.

How could this happen? Easy. Scott is mentally ill. Mismanagement of finances or possessions is a prime symptom of some illnesses.

Focus on what to do now, to stay out of homeless shelters, or to move out as soon as possible. What can you tell us about the protective housing available for the mentally ill in NY?

One or two postgraduate degrees and a hoarding-type spending habit (plus easy credit for graduates with nice addresses and previously fat bank balances) - I don't find it hard to imagine where the money went. Too late for regrets, Scott: just keep your eyes looking forward.

Scott, why didn't you pay off the $70,000 of student loans with the $70,000 that you told us earlier that you inherited from your dad? Too late now, but it does not sound like you have been managing your money very well while living with your mother.

Scott I thought you said your Dad paid for your college, which is it? If you have that bad a credit score no landlord is going to look twice with that kind of credit report, so you'd better get down upon your knees and beg your case worker for help

Gevalt...

Scott I doubt if your mother has caller display on her phone. It's far more likely that she doesn't answer the phone because she finds it very hard to use. I know that when my brother calls my mother she can't manage to speak to him unless I hold the phone next to her ear and prompt her to answer. Even then, it's very difficult for her to speak loudly and clearly enough for my brother to hear her. So: don't get paranoid about her not picking up. Instead, be confident that she does still care about you and would like to know that you're ok. Which, in spite of everything, you basically are.

If the student loan system is broadly comparable to ours in the UK, repayments are taken out of earned income above a certain level - is that what is supposed to happen, do you know? And if your income doesn't reach that level, the debt stays on the books but repayments are suspended?

What has happened with the credit card debt? If you're not being pursued for it, just count your blessings. I don't think you can be surprised that no one is going to extend you any more, though.

You're worrying about the social worker not telling you of your mother's schedule. What about yours? What's going on with the apartment?

Finding somewhere to live is your problem. Help with finding somewhere is available to you, through your caseworker. Stop obstructing her and ask her nicely to help you. And stop focusing on the wrong things.

I wish you a happy new year too, by the way, in case I've sounded too snotty (apologies). Start it by finding a place to live! Best of luck, keep updating, hugs to you.

Hello, I don't work for Enterprise, I work for Fleetlogix. They have an account with Enterprise and provide staff to clean cars, and drive shuttle buses. It's kind of strange that I work at Enterprise but don't work for Enterprise.

And yes I am in debt, I had a lot of credit card debt I never paid from many years ago, and my credit score is so low I will never get credit again. And I owe 70,000 in student loans and that is not dischargeable under statute of limitations. That's really old too, and it is always there. I think I went to grad school back in 1997-98.

I spoke with the neighbor/doorman the other day and he told me he went again to see mom on Monday. According to him she asks about me, wanted to wish me a happy new year. Tells him that my brother makes her not see me. I don't know how to describe it, but I called just now at the hospital and the social worker was very annoyed. She has a phone, my mother, just doesn't answer it because she knows it is me. I don't know what the guy from downstairs was talking about, its hard to understand him.

No my brother will not do anything. he won't talk to me ever again, he said don't call me. He went from telling me what a wonderful opportunity to be independent this is, to telling me when I said I have no where to go that that's your problem, don't call me again.

The social worker wouldn't even tell me that my mother is leaving the rehab center in two weeks.

It's very nice of you to ask, Scott, thank you. My mother is 90. She's been seriously ill with heart disease for many years, and had two small strokes a couple of years ago, but this last stroke, the one I posted about to describe it, was much more serious. Like your mother, she's now paralysed down one side and finds it difficult to talk clearly, and she can't see well: her eyes are working, but her brain function is all over the place. She was in hospital for just over a week, and then she was transferred to a rehabilitation unit. She's been there for nearly two weeks now. I doubt if it's as comfortable as the one your mother has been staying in, because in the UK most health care is provided by the state so they don't have much money for décor or very nice food; but the actual nursing and medical care, and the therapies, are all excellent, and the people are kind. I feel lucky. If she weren't being well looked after I'd be frantic with worry about her. I hope you feel the same kind of reassurance, that at least you know your mother is in a safe environment and being taken good care of. Knowing that it's doing her good is really the main thing.

I hope she'll be able to come home before too long, but I won't be able to take care of her by myself any more because she is too severely disabled: it takes two people to move her safely, and there's only one of me. She will get gradually better, but she's too old, and the stroke was too severe, for there to be any hope that she will recover completely. We just have to wait and see how well she does, and then sort out all the right kind of care for her, and home adaptations, so that she can come home. It could take weeks or months, I just have to wait and see.

The kind of employment Enterprise is offering sounds like a "zero hours contract." They are not popular with workers, but they are becoming very common in organisations where costs are tightly controlled and wages are the major cost. By the way, I think McDonalds has been running that same system for years. As long as you have a full working week's worth of hours they don't make much difference to your take home pay, but the trouble is that you have no guarantees - it does make people feel insecure, I don't blame you for disliking it. And I agree that it seems like a shoddy way to treat people. They do it because they can, and it makes commercial sense, especially in a business where demand fluctuates enormously and is unpredictable. I realise that's not much consolation. I appreciate that you'd prefer more structure to your working environment, too; it is important to feel that you're making progress in your job, and getting somewhere. It's not easy to know what to suggest. On the one hand, at least you've *got* a job, so things could be worse; and there certainly are worse companies to work for than Enterprise. On the other, there's nothing to stop you looking around and seeing if anything better turns up, is there? But I know it wouldn't be simple.

People do use homeless shelters when they're in low wage work, I know; they also live in those big storage containers, too, completely illegally - I'm not recommending that! And I do also realise that having a job doesn't automatically mean you can easily afford rent. But you have savings. You are employed. You're not in debt (are you???!!!). And whatever you feel about him, I don't believe your brother wouldn't have your back if it came to it. He wants you to be independent. That doesn't mean he'd sit back and fold his arms if you were in trouble. It's not the same thing. I don't know. I just feel as though you in some ways think you deserve to be in a homeless shelter, and you're turning that thought into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Well, you don't deserve it, and it doesn't have to happen. And even if it is possible for you to get a place in a homeless shelter, that doesn't make it a good idea, or the right thing to do. As I said, you have alternatives.

Scott, there is a lot of contracting out of work these days. My husband, who is an IT person, was unemployed for 3 1/2 years. He finally got a job through GoodTemps, which is part of Goodwill, working at a NYC agency. But it is contact work, no sick days, no benefits. There is a lot of this these days. But many contract jobs lead to jobs with the company itself. Scott, I'm glad you're saving money and looking for a room. Best of luck to you.

Also I had to stop and re read the post from CM about her mother having had a stroke. My mother didn't have any problems swallowing, but they wouldn't give her any food or water at first because she had to pass the swallow test. Never did get to see that because by that time my brother had me banned from the acute hospital.

How is your mother now? What kind of facility did you choose after she left the the acute hospital? Did the paralysis go away, has she been given any therapy to help her? How old is she? You forgot to mention it.

Also, regarding Enterprise. Who else does that? Has anyone ever heard of anything comparable?

Also CFH is more than just about homeless people's rights. They have caseworkers and can advise people, they have offices and can have people come in and speak with them. YOu have to get there really early though.

SHould have gone to that movie tonight.

You know, country mouse, you would be very surprised at the number of people who have jobs and live in homeless shelters. The person at work who I spoke to, he told me he specified that he wanted a shelter with working people. Yes, there are working people who reside in homeless shelters, sorry to break that stereotype. You look on the DHS website and they tell you that if you are in a shelter and a suitable offer of housing is made then you have to accept it. I asked this guy I met what that meant, does that mean that they find an apartment for you, he said no, they just want you to go out and get a job and save up money and then they look on craigs list for a room for you. That's all they do.

There was an article on the NYT about working people in homeless shelters, about 2 people at an office party who met and one said she had to leave because she had a curfew, i live in a shelter, and the other person said, so do I.

I thank you for your post, though, CM. From what I can tell from talking to people the men's shelters are particularly bad. The family shelters are the best ones; they actually get their own rooms. But the men's shelters are the worst.

I am afraid. I have two thousand dollars saved; yes I can rent. But can you even call what I have a job? Where you don't know if you are working from week to week? Yes, they have people there with 40 hour schedules. But most have "had their hours cut". I had a 40 hour schedule and then I went and looked and one day it was down to 16. And when I went and asked the "account manager", all he said was something about "client needs", I don't even remember.

I know I am complaining. A lot. It seems though that working at Mcdonald's is a lot better. Or a company like mcdonalds. They make you work. This company makes you work too, so I don't even know what exactly I am trying to say. I don't know, they seem to care about the worker more there, despite paying them only minimum wages. I know it doesn't makes sense. That's just how it seems to me.

Too much time posting again. My mother would have thought this ridiclous. But than you for your quick post. And yes I think you and I would be surprised at the number of people who work who go to a shelter.

You could google NYT and homeless shelters. or look at the CFH page. 60000 every night in this city. That's enough to fill yankee stadium with people standing. I really appreciate your comment, though. You seem genuinely concerned for people, as do most everyone here. Everyone, in fact.

I get so confused with the names, though.

Good luck, Scott. Hope you continue to look into getting suitable housing and find something that works for you.

I just have to add that Enterprise is a horrible company. Why can't they just hire people? Why do they have to "contract" with companies like Cavalry Staffing and Fleetlogix (the one I work for) for people to work? Do people who rent cars even know what they are doing? It is a truly horrible situation. And I had only been there a couple of weeks when my mother had her stroke. It's truly terrible what had happened. I walked through the door and she was on the floor banging on the refrigerator. But she was ok, she really was. The stroke didn't happen until the next night, sorry as I am to say this. I love my mother so much. I couldn't go to that movie tonight. I went and bought her a card. They have a nice flower stand on 169th street by the subway entrance. Beautiful flowers. The most expensive was 25 dollars. Really a beautiful arrangement, much nice than a flower store. I could drop them off tomorrow when I go to the airport to the job.

Isn't that terrible, for such a crappy low paying job they can't even hire you, they have to do this thing with having an outside agency? I don't even know what you call that. This company is truly horrible! And they are a really really big company. They are the biggest rental car company. Enterprise, Alamo, and National are all one company. They are absolutely huge. And they use this comppany Cavalry staffing and bring in poeple by the bus load to ferry cars around. By the bus load, with 12 hour shifts. Fleetlogix is the same.

I am not going to write anymore. I appreciate all the comments from everyone here. I don't even know what brought me here originally. Probably because I wanted to post something and you don't have any registration process to get on the site. You can just go in and start posting, which is what I did. Almost 400 posts now.

Scott, you have alternatives to homeless shelters. Some people don't. You shouldn't even be thinking of taking up space that is desperately needed by other people as long as you have a job and you have the back-up, which you do, to rent somewhere to stay. Stop punishing yourself by dwelling on this, and spend your time researching vacancies instead of homeless people's rights.

I was going to see a movie tonight. They have a theater in Queens called the Kew Gardens Cinema that has a lot of independent films. The movie I wanted to see is Wild. Has anyone seen it? I think I posted last week about wanting to see it, but still have not gone. And the thing I put in about going to church, I just went because they always tell me at the rehab center when I call Sunday morning there that my mother has gone to church, something I can't ever remember her doing. She had parents of two religions, one Jewish and the other Christian, and her brother and sister were both Christian, though her husband, (and my father), were Jewish.

Even if it weren't in Spanish I wouldn't have been able to hear it that well anyway. I don't know why I went.

Cold as anything out tonite though. Code blue by the dept of homeless services. That means that you can go to any homeless shelter, not just your official one, and don't have to go through the intake process, or if you've been sanctioned you can still go. Or you can go to any emergency room. I had previously contacted someone from an organization called colaition for the homeless. Its a non profit and has nothing to do with any government agency. It's just a non profit. They told me over the phone a few things I didn't know; that drop in shelters are ones you can go to without having to go through the intake process, but you aren't guaranteed a bed, I don't think. I talked to someone who told me he was homeless, who worked for the company that contracts for Enterprise. So to the person who said you have to put the legs of your bed into your shoes, if you don't go through the intake process, and need an emergency shelter, you don't even get a bed. You have to sleep in a chair. CFH runs a website; its informative.

I spend to much time composing posts. So I'll end with that.

Thanks for keeping us updated. Keep working on finding a room! Good luck on that.

Well I spoke with my aunt. My mother will be there in Trump Pavilion for a little longer. Still trying her room phone, which she never answers because she knows I am the only one calling, as she is the one who calls when she talks to my aunt, and still trying at the nurses station phone, and she is always out of her room, or once when she was there, I think, the nurse said who's calling and I said her son, and she said which son, so she didn't want to take the call I assume; the nurse just said to call back later.

She does call my aunt once a week, that I know, and my brother probably visits her every week or maybe even twice a week. Went to see a room nearby, too, not even a block away, but just wasn't sure what to do, it was in someone's apartment, and they had a student from St. John's U coming to see it too, which is right near here, so it's probably gone by now. I could call to see if it's still available.

I just tried the nurse's station again. both times I have managed to get her on the phone for a few seconds were early in the morning. One time she wished me a happy thanksgiving, that was right around the time I started this thread, I think they call it, and another time was a few weeks ago when she said she had nothing to say to me. It must be very bad for her, the situation that she is in. Her aunt did say she had made a lot of friends there in Trump Pavilion.

Didn't work today. I have a 4 day schedule, but I have been just going in and working. The account manager told me the other day I can only work 40 hours. I was hoping to be able to work more. The store manager does not want to pay overtime obviously.

Nice day today though freezing cold. I slept so much yesterday, pretty much all day and all last night too. worked outside for 2 days, don't really know if I can take working in the extreme cold like this.

Thanks again to all who posted. Don't know about you but it takes a lot of time composing and typing this in, at least for me. My mother would probably think it a waste of time.

Hello, thanks again to all who commented, and asked about me. I've just been working. Called a few ads from Craig's List. One I didn't get back to in time; wasn't sure anyway as there were no kitchen facilities but the price was good, 500 per month, and it wasn't too far from where I am now.

I think my mom is still in Trump Pavilion. I tried calling her room number the other night and my brother answered. I just hung up. Since I am the only one who calls of course I'm sure he knew it was me.

It's hard working outside in the cold. Especially at night, at the airport. It just gets so cold; it was in the teens last night when I left, and I am sure it went lower after that.

I would so much like to talk to my mother. I have no idea how she is. The stroke has left her paralyzed in her arm and leg. She can't walk. I keep trying her on the phone. The staff there at the hospital where she is must be always constantly changing, because it always seems like someone different is on the telephone.

I saw through the email notifications that there were these messages, but I have been holding off responding, sorry. So many posts.

Yes there is a lot of junk around this apartment. I just keep replaying that night over again. I don't even know if she could have received the TPA drug. It's not such a big apartment; I don't know. I keep thinking that if I had called 911 when we first got back from the hospital that she could have gotten the clot buster drug and maybe she would have recovered. I keep reading wonderful stories about this. Jamaica Hospital does have a stroke center and they had it.

I know people here mean well. And maybe I will come back later to this to post some more. It takes me so long, and there seem to be so many people posting now. I thank whoever posted. I try to work, I try to contact my mother. The job is physical now; I have started cleaning cars, as I just wanted to be working as much as possible. It's pretty tough in the cold like this. I have also applied for work as a car washer with National and I have been trying to set up a telephone interview with an HR person at that company.

Yes I think I have mental health issues. I have other issues as well. It is greatly upsetting me that I can't talk to my mother. For 3 months havent spoken. didn't wish her a merry christmas or happy hanukah or happy new year.

So thanks again to everyone.

I agree that Care in the Community - or whatever cuddly title it gets given from time to time - has been a bit of a sick joke, cost-cutting masquerading as a more enlightened and inclusive approach to mental ill health. But I wouldn't get too teary-eyed remembering former provision either. A lot of it was pretty grim.

But I like Realtime's thought - let's hope Scott will be back in a day or two.

I live near one of those former residential hospitals where the workers lived in houses very near the hospital and the residents who could worked on the farm that is no longer used. I believe all of the old residential psychiatric hospitals had their own farms, livestock, etc.

Now we have psych wards in hospitals which are short term stop-gap places, but do not provide residential psychiatric care. Even the place in my state that call themselves mental health hospitals only provide stop-gap services.

In 1963, the Community Mental Health Act was passed, which in essence did away with the "insane asylums ", in part because with the invention of antipsychotic drugs, there was an assumption that the residential hospitals would no longer be needed for long term housing of the mentally ill. The law provided for the building of a network of Community Mental Health facilities that never got built. Therein, in part lies the problem.

Scott, you are in my thoughts and prayers. Hoping you are taking some time to sort things out for yourself in these difficult days, I do hope you come back to let us know how you are doing.

I'm from Canada and don't quite know how things work down there but if there is ever anything I can do to help, please let me know.

As we make our comments, we should remember that Scott may well be back with us soon. He's taken several days off before.

The percentage of homeless adults who have a mental illness is around 46%.

Our prisons are becoming modern-day asylums for the mentally ill as the number of mentally ill inmates increases.

Part of the problem has been state governments gutting the funding from what little safety net there was because of budget cuts. As usual, when budget cuts take place those at the bottom who often have the greatest need for help get left out in the cold.

Realtime I think you are right. Scott is terribly mentally ill and absolutely fails to perceive the real threats to his or anyone else's well being, while drowning in raw emotions and fearing to be honest with the people who might help him in real life, and he almost seemed to experience us and our attempts at support and guidance as a fantasy. I feel shell shocked with the latest disclosure about the hoarding. His poor mom did not have the heart to do what she needed to do, which was to get him out of her home, and if at all possible, into serious psychiatric care, for the sake of both her survival and his. It is obvious now that his brother rescued his mom from a disastrous and untenable situation, but given our system, with such a high threshold for taking over decisionmaking for an adult, had no realistic way to rescue Scott at the same time. I don't think we had any way to do any more than we did either. I'm just sad for everybody involved and will keep praying that some goodness comes out of this for all. I know in my heart that a number of the homeless folks out there have backstories more like Scott's than we realize, and will remember to keep donating food, boots, and blankets.