OK so a few days back I blogged about crappy work things and whined about having to evict a tenant? If I knew how to do those nifty linky things that tech savvy people do on their blogs there would be one here! But I don't, sadly enough and i don't reference back posts often enough that learning is a priority for me. . . but I am rambling.
I kicked out a tenant who needed it. Who deserved it, and who had multiple chances to preserve their tenancy. But I worried at the time about her young child. Said child is right around the age of some of my kids and is cute as a button.
Yesterday child services called me about the now former tenant. I explained in detail, exruciating detail every problem we had. Why? Not because I wanted to screw the former tenant, but because child services had let it spill intentionally or otherwise, that the batterer was sitting there with former tenant and together they were looking for child services to provide housing solutions for them both. I have rarely been so precise in my concerns to an agency. I have rarely had so much hard data to provide but I had reports up the wazoo because we so tried to work with this tenant.
It is not nice to hope that protective services would take a child from a birth parent but I confess that I was hoping that this was going to be done on at least a temporary basis. There was no permanent housing now and the batterer was present and active in the household. Probably due to stupid laws I know nothing about, this didn't happen.
Front page of today's paper in our city was the arrest of batterer and former tenant. He beat her up in a hotel room while she was holding her child. Former tenant was substance impaired. Child is now, at last, in protective services. The batterers "extensive violent history was cited in the newspaper article. But it took a violent act on that little child to have removal take place. I am glad she is safe now though. I hope mom gets help. I hope they can be a family again; but most of all, I want that little child to stay safe.
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2 comments:
Heartbreaking. I am so glad you were able AND willing to do what needed to be done.
You did the right thing in kicking her out, which eventually got that poor child away from her and her batterer, at least for a while. *hugs*
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