Mother, Daughter in Need Become Victims of the System

“The system has died,” Nina Berman told me over the phone. “It still has a frame, but there is nothing inside.”

I met Nina the next day. She brought doughnuts, two bags, and a large cup of coffee. The doughnuts stayed in the bags; they would be eaten over the next few days. Tina Bednar, sitting high in a loaned wheelchair, sipped at the coffee, bringing her head to the cup.

Tina’s not all that sure about what she should say to me. She’s not big on pity. Sympathy, that’s fine. Understanding, that would be better.

Nina, who calls herself Tina’s “advocate volunteer” in the letters that she writes on Tina’s behalf, in all the calls that she makes for her, is her friend.

You can tell that by the way these women smile at each other, by the way that Nina puts her hands over her face as Tina recounts some particularly sad aspect of her life and by the way that Nina is always laying those same hands on Tina’s arm.

Also Nina tries to boost Tina’s spirits. They go to lunch once a week, whenever the restaurant down the street is serving cream of broccoli soup.

The most recent letter that Nina wrote for Tina was late last month. It was to the company that manages the apartment complex where Tina lives in Irvine with her 22-year-old daughter, Lisa, who is mentally retarded. Tina is tremendously proud of Lisa because she will graduate from University High School’s special education program this month.

Tina has advanced multiple sclerosis. She is 43 years old, with no medical insurance. She can still walk a few steps when forced to, but not many. Her son, 16, lives with her ex-husband.

Tina and her daughter had been getting along, with nothing to spare clearly, but with enough to pay the rent. But not long after Tina finally got a court order to garnish her ex-husband’s wages for spousal support, he lost his job.

That was the only money that Tina had coming in. She’s never had any government help, although her daughter began receiving some $600 a month in SSI benefits last year.

So now Tina is supposed to get some of her ex-husband’s unemployment insurance, which will fall far short of her obligations, like the rent. Tina paid $600 to the apartment management company at the first of June, except the rent is $1,125.

The company told her she must either pay the rest or immediately get out.

But in her letter, Nina explained about Tina’s extenuating circumstances, about how as her “volunteer advocate” she had been wending her way through this agency and that, and how even though Tina appears to be eligible for SSI, which might pay her what it pays her daughter, the agency has six months to decide.

Nina said in the letter that Tina could pay $700 a month for rent.

“It is important that (Tina) continue to live in your complex because of its proximity to a shopping center and because it has taken Lisa years to learn the neighborhood and its facilities, including its transportation,” the letter said.

It did no good. The management company wrote back, a very nice letter, but the answer was still no. Rent policies are fixed.

“It is refreshing to receive such heartfelt correspondence, and I appreciate your sincerity,” the property supervisor wrote Nina. “On a personal level, I would like to commend you on your compassion and thank the Bednars for their residency. I wish you all the best.”

Tina comments to Nina that the letter was very polite. This seems to mean more to Tina than it does to her volunteer advocate, who explains that corporations are good at polite letters, but in the end such politeness is of little use.

“No one has money anymore,” Nina says. “So everybody refers to everybody else. I get in touch with one agency, one group, and they refer me to 15 others. It’s like a ball that gets thrown around and around. You go down to Social Services and you understand why.”

Tina points out that Nina has been wonderful to her, about how over the past four years, since her husband of 17 years divorced her and her lifestyle and medical condition have gone quickly downhill, Nina’s always come back, steady, ready to help and arranging for others to pitch in.

Tina also converted to Catholicism after the church near her old home in Turtle Rock--the only one she could reach in her wheelchair--went out of its way to help her as best it could.

“My children needed God and they took us in,” Tina says.

All of this is how, Tina and Nina explain, the electric bill would get paid, or the laundry done, or a hot meal would appear. It’s been hand to mouth, the kindness of strangers and gifts from God.

“They were all small crises, ongoing small fires,” Nina says.

“But you did good,” Tina says. “You were always good at extinguishing.”

“But now we have a big fire, Tina. The hose doesn’t work anymore.”

This gets back to what Nina, who is training for her license in clinical social work and who has an M.D. for a husband and three children herself, had told me on the phone.

The system is one big shell game. Tina is afraid now that she is confronted with that truth.

“It is obviously going to get worse,” she says. “I don’t know what to do. Now I have pretty much accepted that I will have to move from my home. I don’t know to where.”

Tina says she spoke with a woman at yet another agency the other day. The woman suggested that Tina and her daughter would have to split up, each in separate institutional homes. This is not something that either woman wants.

Tina says she will not do it, and Lisa has said that too.

“At the transitional meeting at the high school yesterday, with people from all the different agencies that are supposed to manage Lisa’s transition from high school to society, they told Lisa that she would be living on her own,” Tina says.

“But Lisa said, very politely, ‘I am not moving.’ She said, ‘I choose not to live there.’ That was the word she used.”

Then I ask Tina how that made her feel.

“I felt sad for Lisa,” she says, “because I am going to pull her down, the burden of my handicap. Her love for me is going to be burdensome for her. That is always going to weigh on me.”

Now, Tina’s eyes moisten with tears.