Grant Money Needed For No Income Single Mother With Disabled Child

by Elizabeth
(Texas, USA)

My name is Elizabeth, and I have been blessed with three beautiful boys. I am divorced and my ex-husband is rarely around to help in any way.

I filed for divorce when my oldest child was two years old. It became a long and messy battle that included a protective order and assistance from the Battered Women's Shelter. My children were taken without my knowledge to another state.

The same week those papers were served, the kids and I had to leave our house and lost our only vehicle. I was working as a cashier at a local fast food place where I crawled my way into management.

At this time, my ex did not yet pay child support. I picked up a second job two doors down to help keep my kids and I in our apartment. I was promoted to an assistant manager position within the month.

When I was made aware that the store manager was using the money in the store safe to pay her personal bills, I decided it was in my best interest to find a different second job.

I applied for, and was granted, an assistant manager position at a convenience store. By then, the child support order had taken effect. I was able to hold my bills steady at that point, so I went back to school.

I received my GED in 2005, made the Adult Education Honor Roll, and immediately took a beginning collage course in management. I was able to move into a bigger apartment and put a down payment on a used car.

That's when things went south. My oldest son started attacking students, teachers, and equipment at school. He was in kindergarten.

I had been experiencing behavior problems with him for a couple years prior to this, but thought it was a child's way of dealing with divorce.

I was forced to put in my two weeks notice for both of my jobs, and got a third manager position a block away from my child's school.

This move was made necessary due to the frequent calls from the school to come and pick up my child.

There were many times MISD Police would already have my son restrained by the time I arrived. I applied for assistance with MHMR and put my son in counseling.

MHMR accepted my application and started services in the beginning of my son's first grade year. He was diagnosed with severe ADHD and ODD.

Soon after his diagnosis, he started setting things on fire. Within two years, he had gone through several counselors. He was making no progress with any of them, and finally refused to go.

Getting him to school was a major problem because he had grown to hate it. He would jump out of my car in the mornings on the way to school and run off into traffic.

He also stopped sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, and would stay up for days. His doctor increased the dosage on his medications very quickly to try and get some balance, but he ended up overdosing my son.

My little boy was rushed to the ER, and at six years old, was going into a stroke due to the incredibly high blood pressure from all of his medications.

He was pulled off his meds and we started over using lower levels of various cocktails until we found one that made some improvement.

A year later I went to work in the oilfield driving a truck to deliver parts to the rigs and working in the warehouses. Using my tax return from that year, I was finally able to pay off my car and put a down payment on a used trailer house.

I got lucky and found one for $25,000, although after financing on a 15-year note, it's closer to fifty.

I had it placed on a lot with no other trailers next to it in hopes I would no longer be under the threat of losing our place to live because of my son's screaming fits and destructive behavior.

In 2009, I was forced to leave work because of my son's ongoing problems at school. I had no childcare available that was capable of dealing with my son, and the liability to both parties was too great to chance.

My son is making progress although it is very slow. He hasn't set a fire in almost two years! He is very behind in school, and after watching him slip further and further behind his classmates, the staff and I were faced with a difficult decision on how to help him.

The school informed me that they could not spare any teachers for the extensive one-on-one he needed, and had only one other choice for him, which was a "back unit" class. Basically, it's a detention class.

My son was in the third grade, supposed to be in fourth, and still could not read or write past a kindergarten level. I then decided to do the only thing left for me to do for him, and after much preparation, I pulled him out of school.

He is schooled at home with me now and is finally making good progress in his studies. I am so proud of him! He is receiving SSI payments once a month in the amount of $392.31.

The amount was almost two hundred dollars higher, but a friend is trying to help me by paying the electric bills, and Social Security said although I do not have enough money for basic living even with the help, it would lower my son's payments.

I am receiving $290 bi-weekly in child support, and we get a food stamp allowance every month. This is our only income.

I am very close to losing our home and everything else I have worked so hard for over the past eight years.

I have tried to get help through local channels, but they work against each other. For instance, I was told I couldn't get TANF because I receive child support.

I have looked through hundreds of grants, and cannot find a single one for those in my position.

I also could not get the child tax credit, nor the interest credit from my home because I didn't make enough taxable money before having to leave the work force.

I am writing this as our last hope. Please, please help.