Broken Vessels

This has been a sucky week at work. Lots of weird computer issues that serve to graphically indicate that not only am I not uber techno in my abilities, but neither are many MANY people. Including the people who want the data that we are sending. Sigh. At least I communicate when I don't get something. Others don't. Sigh again.

But I digress. Other than serving to probably contribute to early blindness, all the hours spent on the computer are fairly moot. Sort of job security. The other sucky part has been with regard to tenants.

This week I had to evict a mother and child. I hate that. The child is adorable (as all kids are IMHO) and helpless. Mom is likely a substance user who finances her addictions with her body. The issues began to impact other residents and unfortunately as a a landlord, despite numerous efforts, there was no choice left to us. But I know that last night there was a child with no home, and a child with a very unstable situation with regard to the parent.

Yesterday morning I got a call a bit before 9 about a former tenant. She was on the property and was attempting to break into one of the units. The unit in question is rented by someone who was in relationship with her. Former tenant is known to police, who warned me after they asked that I come down that "if things went bad she was known to be extremely physical." I am guessing this was police code for after I served the paper of no trespass to step back. I wasn't particularly worried for my safety. There were two cops and I have 12 years of martial arts training. Former tenant was many sheets to the wind despite the early hour of the day and my guess is I would not have had trouble keeping myself safe. She didn't try to assault me and I kept the conversation firm but kind of compassionate sounding. She was taken into custody to sleep off the booze and hopefully will not return. Again, this was someone who when they lived here seemed to be fulfilling a promise of making a better life. So not. Is definately in a worse place than she was when she first came here years ago. And she is now a mother who does not have custody of her children.

I blogged discreetly months ago about a court case which involved trying to help someone regain custody of her children. Despite all the evidence seeming to indicate that she had really pulled her life together, the ruling ultimately went against my tenant. I had not seen her since that court appearance and saw her for the first time yesterday. The devastation is easy to read on her face. She is clearly holding on by literally fingernails and I worry for her emotional well being. It is clear that she is very depressed and I don't know who to call or even if I am crossing boundaries if I did call someone. There are other issues there that are not bloggable and in fairness to the courts it may be that it took too long for her to become stable for it to be reasonable to reunite the family. I do understand and support (obviously ) the ties that the children and the foster adoptive families made over a considerable period of time. It is possible that the decision was in the child's best interest. It sure wasn't in my tenant's best interest.

Probably the only item of interest is that in all of these situations do not involve people of color. I find that intriguing. It is not because of a lack of diversity in our community. In fact there are more people of color here than anglo. I'm not really going anywhere specific with this. It is just sad situations and collectively they make me sad too.