Epilogue: Pandemic Memoir: Corruption Truly Puts the "ill" in Illinois
It seems only fitting that this long strange journey which began in IL with a girl writing to her Governor, JB P, pointing out a lacking resource for victims of domestic violence and asking for help with same - that it would now, four years later, come full circle- to, THIS, my final letter to you, Governor Pritzker. I truly struggled with how to end this Memoir for, much like the Pandemic, my ongoing cumbersome challenges are not at all “over” - and I now realize it was always fated to be this way. I’m still housing insecure, still languishing in poverty and fully dependent upon the kindness of others to help me through my chronic financial crises. Because when your housing ALONE takes up 90% of your income, you are destined to never get ahead. The system is not designed to reward initiative or business startups - but rather, to punish any penny you might make over a shockingly low, poverty level of subsistence.
I am so grateful to those of you who followed along, helped me, hoped with me, prayed for me, cheered for me and carried me through- I only hope you know just how much I love you all.
I began my temporary residency in Illinois in August 2019 fleeing unfathomable stalking, identity/postal & banking theft & emotional violence from Missouri. The night I left, I nearly died at his hands when he ambushed me in my apartment - with an ACTIVE Order of Protection against him - filed with the Court.
Yes, I almost became a statistic- another dead woman whose corpse is drenched in her own blood - yet clutching a fully useless Order of Protection against my stalker. It’s important to note he was NEVER an intimate partner. Just another garden variety sociopath with too much money and unwarranted access to other people’s lives, homes and personal information. This sociopath had 89 unwarranted intrusions into my home in 3 months. After this, the second time he ambushed me with homicidal rage in his eyes and determined to kill me - I kicked him in the nads then hit his nose with my elbow as he recoiled downward from the crotch kick. Turns out - that self defense class was the ONLY thing that EVER helped me try and ward off this maniac. “The system” surely never tried to help me and only always failed me.
I just drove into the dark and didn’t really stop panicking and sobbing long enough until I looked up and realized I saw an exit for Springfield IL. We once went there as kids for a vacation. So, still dazed and running on pure shock adrenaline- I checked into a local hotel there and just cried, while cradling my 2 cherished felines who thankfully instinctively knew to RUN with me on my way out the door - fleeing my attacker in St. Louis.
In Springfield, IL, I very fortunately quickly found a “sublease” for 6 months under someone else’s name which was CRUCIAL to me - for I cannot put any utilities or house title in my name - or he would/will find me - and likely, finally, kill me. He is both a computer hacker AND a slumlord in STL - which gives him unfortunate access to every database (including utilities and banking!) and I absolutely knew, I could not afford be found by him - ever again.
As I have a “knack” for doing - I discovered quite accidentally what he is (a down-low gay man married to a pitiful woman) who has lots of money problems because of his NPD and his also down-low party & play meth habit. I found all of that out accidentally when a drug dealer neighbor in a nearby building told me that my landlord was one of his best customers. I then found out the building I had just moved into had been in foreclosure proceedings until my slumlord was able to fill it up with me and 3 other people in Spring 2019. Typical narcissist, they have no skills - except for living off of other people’s money. And remember: this was not MY diagnosis of him. This was from one of the rare GOOD cops in the City of St. Louis MO who gave me grace instead of dismissal and actually <listened to me> for 2 hours tell him everything the creep slumlord had been doing since I moved in - and the COP had to tell ME that I was dealing with a “covert sociopathic narcissist” and that he would kill me if I didn’t immediately leave.
Because that’s how the system works in STL: the white male property owner gets to stay and his terrorized victim who just spent thousands to move there - has to leave. Why? Because the City of St. Louis, particularly St. Louis Hills, is a largely all white, high tax dollar enclave in that City and it is rampant with battered but silent domestically abused affluent wives. It’s literally one of the worst kept secrets in St. Louis. But they do try HARD to hide this secret as the cops for that District are trained to list the calls as “a prowler or suspicious person incident” or really any other category except what it is: domestic dispute. And domestic violence in the homes of the affluent in this area of St.Louis is alarming. But, so too, are the number of self-identified heterosexual husbands there engaging in “homosexual indiscretions in the local parks and bar bathrooms” too. So, in that sense, this sociopath slumlord was very much the “typical married white male” of St. Louis Hills. (Note: I ordinarily do not make it my path to want to shame people who struggle with their own sexual identity and neither am I doing that here. And I mention all of this only to stress this point: When someone knows you know most of their shameful secrets - and they are, according to law enforcement, a covert sociopathic narcissist - they absolutely will stop at nothing to end you - so as to keep from being exposed.)
I think it important to mention that I had perfectly charming and amenable landlord relationships in my 20s, 30s and 40s. And I’ve maintained my CURRENT amicable living arrangement with my current landlords for over a year. I say this to point out that I had DECADES of GOOD landlords (and homeowner residency in an affluent suburb of Atlanta) prior to landing on 3 very bad landlords - following the death of my Dad. And to that I can only say this: Since my Dad died, I now have a ‘knack’ to see right through people and get at who they REALLY are in short order. Some in the religious community call this knack “divine discernment” but I call it a burden and a curse. I literally never want to know anything about another shady landlord ever again - which is why I continue to keep my current landlords at arm’s length and away from me behind a constantly locked door. As far as I know, they are perfectly nice people sharing their home with other nice people and they have a loving, happy marriage and family. I don’t care if that’s not the truth of it - it’s what I have <chosen> to believe for the sake of peaceful coexistence and a continued roof over my head. Because, nowadays, when you’re me? Ignorance IS indeed bliss.
But, circling back to fleeing to Springfield IL in August 2019, being forced to live with my name on NOTHING - no documents nor bank accounts nor utilities etc is very hard to do. But I had to find a way to try and “figure it out” so I could find a safe path forward. I lucked out in this regard and found a safe hiding place, under someone else’s name - who wanted to leave her Lease early to move to Texas. She had just graduated from University and found a job in TX. At the time, I wondered WHY she would leave Springfield IL. I now no longer wonder WHY she chose to relocate to Texas immediately upon graduation: it was because she was white and her fiancé was black and Springfield IL still has a very ACTIVE and alarming KKK mentality & culture. They still think “black face costuming” is cute and decorating their yards with “dead people” hanging from trees and gallows is “clever, kitschy, Halloween lawn ornaments.” 🙄
Yeah. It took me about three (3) months to come to terms with many unpleasant and ugly truths about Springfield IL that I just initially couldn’t wrap my head around; because it seemed like such a charming, low crime town - especially compared to STL City. Yeah, sure - it’s perfectly charming - so long as you’re white, heterosexual and other very specific labels. I learned VERY QUICKLY to just never mention Governor Pritzker’s name in Springfield. I later learned to never mention it at all in Downstate IL. I also did not realize that when I fled for safety to IL not thinking and running on pure shock adrenaline - that Illinois is a very large Republican red State with a huge blue corner called Chicago. When you realize BOTH parties have their own “turf” in Illinois and BOTH PARTIES have fully failed the good people of Illinois- you begin to see that Illinois is a peculiar yet precisely accurate microcosm of the Nation as a whole.
Which, all that means is - both political sides will hate me for writing this Epilogue instead of coming together and asking: “How can we help fix these things?” So many Americans seem to be addicted to hate: hate just to hate and/or hate of the other political party etc News flash: They play good cop, bad cop with us all as they become millionaires beholden to Corporate interests and not We the People - and BOTH SIDES fail us.
But speaking of Governor Pritzker, that was how I intended to actually end this Memoir - with one FINAL letter from me to him - regarding everything so fully failing in his State. But then I realized - if he still had any interest in effectively intervening in my dire circumstance- which I truly believe he genuinely did in the beginning way back in 2019 through 2021 - as His Office was, to his credit, always immediately responsive to my communications back then - he would have already dispatched someone to call & reach out to me. But it was when my constituent letters became discerning and standing in direct contrast to his claims of 100% flawless success as Governor - and my constant reminders of how broken Illinois is in 2022 and 2023 - that The Governor ultimately opted to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to my ongoing encounters with the unyielding intransigence of IL government agencies thereafter.
And I get it - it’s easier that way for him - and why concern himself with issues that only impact everyone marginalized who isn’t him in Illinois? I guess it was just disappointing to me that Governor Pritzker chose the path of apathy & avoidance. For I once upon a more naive time honestly believed he was a Governor who cared about ALL people in Illinois- not just his wealthy donor class. And a big part of me still wants to believe that Governor exists here in Illinois- perhaps just not for me.
So, it seemed fitting to me that this Pandemic Memoir would end how my long, strange journey began: with a letter to Governor Pritzker. I believe God sent me on this journey to show me all the broken things, all the secret things and all the corrupt things ~ so that I could be a voice to the voiceless. For prior to my Dad’s death, I led a very charmed & affluent life by all objective measures. But God knew I had it in me - even when I didn’t know I had it in me - for every day I pray “Teach me what you want me to understand, oh Lord, show me what you need me to see, trust me with everything you know that I can handle.” God knew long before I did that He had put a Double Assignment on my life too: to be an inspirational advocate, a woman of wisdom and of measured diplomacy; and a courageous and vital voice - for such a time as this. It was my life’s greatest double blessing that I was a) called to this assignment and b) that when I cried out for help - when I was surrounded by a crumbling and failed IL government on every side of me, that the good people of the World came running to help me. For had TwitterFam (and to a lesser extent Redditors) not saved my life when the IL government left me penniless, medically vulnerable, in abject poverty and powerless - I would have surely perished before now. I owe “my backup army” of total kind internet strangers a debt I can never repay. I bow to you, my fellow warriors, and I salute you 🫡
I first wrote to Governor Pritzker in October 2019 because IL was inexplicably lacking an Address Confidentiality Program for survivors of domestic violence. And I desperately needed such a Program to exist - so that I could safely receive my mail in Illinois. Such a Program had already existed in the states of Missouri and Georgia for 10+ years so I found it odd that it was lacking in Illinois. I even joked in that first letter to Governor Pritzker saying: “Can we maybe get this created because when you’re 10 years behind what other States have already done - you’re doing it wrong.” To his credit and given his Freshman year enthusiasm as Governor back then - that Program was up and running in IL by November 2019 and I immediately enrolled. I was qualified because of the violence against me by the slumlord in St. Louis and my Order of Protection against him was sufficient to provide for 7 years of my participation in this Program. It was just the kinda godsend I needed right then.
But I’m not entirely certain ANOTHER letter from me - surely headed straight to the shredder by his staff - will matter much - here at the end. It certainly won’t change anything. Nevertheless, I persist - this one last time…so here’s hoping a Gen Z intern, AND THE REST OF GEN Z AS A WHOLE also reading this letter, who have not yet been robbed of their empathy and compassion due to jading caused by the politics of Illinois, will actually read this last communication from me and urge the Governor to allow his HEART to guide him moving forward. For his heart and quick action amidst such widespread human suffering in his State is what we most need now.
Halfway through writing the larger work of my Pandemic Memoir about the troubled state of IL, I realized I wasn’t writing it for anyone except me: to make a permanent, written record of what happened, who did what, how, when and why. And I just hope that someday - someone somewhere reads these pages I have written and says: “I would have loved her. LadyJustice314 of TwiX truly tried to do right by everyone and she stood up for the vulnerable and always demanded truth and justice. And those things STILL matter in America today.”
Maybe - then - THAT PERSON will pick up advocacy where I was forced to cease. Here’s hoping…
I also hope that ENOUGH people languishing in the same broken nothingness of dysfunctional and corrupt Illinois governmental agencies will read my words and feel less alone - for it is a very isolating and terrorizing experience to be unhoused.
So, my final letter to Governor Pritzker is published here in its entirety. After reading it, you will likely understand his <sudden silence> to my persistent questions about WHY every State agency in IL is just nonfunctional and NOT working - both literally and metaphorically. I did not write this in this tone and tenor to chide, demean or disgrace the Governor. I took this tone of interrogation about the state of his State because I have found politeness gets you nowhere. Power concedes nothing to politeness. I was POLITE in my first 12 letters. And in changing my tone I am truly hoping to remind Governor Pritzker that he needs the constituents of IL much more than we need him. And to pose a public question: how can a man in charge of a fully failed State at every governmental level even begin to think that he is ready for the National Stage as President of this Country? To that I would say this: “Mr. Governor, start in your own home State. Start in your own heart. Start in your own *legally questionable* secret parts of Illinois being fully run by mobsters, organized crime, foreign assets, government racketeering etc Make the good people of Illinois whole and not hurting, languishing and dying - and THEN we can perhaps evaluate you as a National candidate. For you are not a serious person until you clean up your own fully failed State FIRST.
Dear Governor Pritzker:
I want to thank you for Your Office reading my past communications - all of them - and for being responsive to the earlier ones when I first wrote to you in 2019 and 2021. I hope you know - that even on my worst days these past five (5) years, I was ALWAYS glad that you were my Governor- and not some tone-deaf politician who doesn’t care at all about constituents struggling with hard life challenges. I truly do appreciate that you tried to initially intervene and assist when everything went so catastrophically wrong in my life in Downstate IL during the Pandemic- because I fully realize NONE of the Republican politicians in Downstate IL - who were my actual representatives- cared at all. In fact, many whom I also wrote to about these same critical issues had direct conflicts of interest in that they accepted political contributions from the very entities/agencies that have struggled to function at all in IL for the past 4 years - and about whom I have lodged harrowing complaints. Not surprisingly, the mafia landlady of Decatur was a donor to them all and in a “luncheon club for their Republican wives” social club. So my requests to them for help handling HER misappropriation of State Pandemic funds obviously went nowhere.
So, I wrote to you, Governor Pritzker, because no Republican congressperson in IL seems to care two toes about the spiraling homeless crisis, our elders languishing in lethal Medicaid SNFs - or the corruption I found therein. They don’t care that mental healthcare in IL is nonexistent or - at best - barbaric and inhumane where no healing can ever occur. They don’t care that I have relevant information regarding known human traffickers, rampant Medicaid fraud, regulatory capture at play with IDPH and our Medicaid SNFs in Illinois or the housing crisis devastating people’s whole lives in Illinois - and how to fix it.
They simply do not care. And you did care, Governor Pritzker - at least initially. And for that I will always be grateful.
I have attached at the end of this document the overly long letter I wrote to you in August 2021 about everything that had FAILED IN ILLINOIS GOVERNMENT during the Pandemic Years 2020 and 2021 - and how those failures adversely affected my life - and, too often, nearly cost me my life.
As you may recall, I sustained a nearly fatal case of COVID 19 in March/April 2020 wherein I was in critical care ICU for 47 days. Upon discharge from the hospital, I learned my apartment in Springfield had come and gone during my hospitalization because I just disappeared for over a month - and no one knew what had happened to me.
While struggling with first time homelessness amid a raging global pandemic, I simply never received my IDES Pandemic Unemployment pay from 2020 - because IDES is fundamentally broken and needs to be fully overhauled. My pandemic IDES claim estimated at over $12k never processed in Spring 2020. In July 2020, you realized that billions in Pandemic Unemployment Fraud had occurred & you slammed IDES shut that month. As a result, my claim never processed. Ever. And when someone reached out from IDES Rockford and Chicago as the result of my letter to you 2 years ago about this matter, they told me simply “There is no way to retroactively pay you in 2021 what you should have received in 2020 because that Pandemic Program is closed now.” And that’s just the way that the broken system is in IL. Governor Pritzker, thousands more employees like me in IL exist who simply never received the unemployment benefits we were entitled to receive. All of the criming criminals fraudsters stole the Pandemic Unemployment Funds in IL from March through June 2020; while, thereafter, the real employees desperately needing that financial assistance during an unprecedented pandemic simply never rightfully received what was owed to them.
This theme of the white collar fraudster criminals profiting in IL while the honest citizens pay the price and try, in vain to hold them accountable, is covered in great detail in my full Memoir. So, I was just out of luck on that $12,000 owed to me by IDES - and that is another “loss in Illinois” I just have to accept as endemic to Illinois.
I nearly died for lack of basic lifesaving items in 2020 as a first time homeless disabled female. Worse, I had to watch, often while intervening to try and help, 29 people actually die for want of safe housing in Illinois. I am forever haunted by their entirely preventable deaths.
To this day, I am still housing insecure and 4 years in to an expected 10-15 year wait for handicapped housing in IL.
I will die in that wait, Governor Pritzker. As will many others.
And I recently read a news article wherein you declared that the Venezuelan migrants were prioritized for all available housing resources and Rental Assistance in Illinois - so my wait for housing is now likely to be even LONGER than 12-15 years now.
KYour Administration launched “Home Again” where you committed $365 million in FY 23/24 to reach zero functional homelessness in Illinois. That sure “sounds good” in a Press Release but the reality is: your State can’t even house one handicapped female in a wheelchair with Huntington's Disease in FOUR (4) YEARS. It is, therefore, pure folly to claim you will EVER reach zero functional homelessness in Illinois. Add to that, the surging migrant crisis and this issue of NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING AVAILABLE ANYWHERE IN ILLINOIS could quite literally become the banana peel of your governorship.
I actually owe the Venezuelan migrants a debt I can never repay to them. For they came to the State of Illinois, languished in airports, hotels and cop stations AS I HAVE, TOO, in my own IL homeless saga - but they looked around, realized there are no resources in Illinois to help them find housing and stabilize their lives - and they declared:
“There is just nothing for us here. Better we return to our own Third World Country than face WORSE & HARSHER CIRCUMSTANCES IN ILLINOIS!” 😳😮
Their very outspoken aghast assessment of the failed State of Illinois could not have been any better summed up by me if I had tried. And they, collectively, have now VALIDATED my entire Pandemic Memoir Experience in Illinois of no help and no resources in Illinois as fully true. How sad for us all.
What I did NOT realize when I wrote to you in August 2021 about my Pandemic nightmare, is that you already know what a shell game “the homeless outreach system” is in Illinois. Back then, I honestly believed maybe, being a billionaire, perhaps you just did not realize how “dire straits” it is for the unhoused folks in Illinois- particularly those who are disabled and therefore ineligible for any shelters due to the liability disability poses to the shelters. But I have now “followed the money” for 2 years and I now understand that the $365 million you appropriated for this cause is simply an unauthorized transfer of taxpayer dollars to the failed “housing outreach nonprofits and Public Housing Authorities ” who have never successfully rehoused anyone ever. They take their cut in millions for themselves and their big bonuses and exorbitant salaries and then return a bulk of it into the political reelection machine in IL to ensure FUTURE more millions constantly flow - back and forth - between them and the State. And just like that: one hand washes the other in corrupt Illinois politics. It’s a giant grift game where the homeless are the perishing pawns but everyone else is getting rich on the suffering of those most vulnerable.
How repugnant and fully reprehensible.
I now understand why people PRIVATELY take on the homeless cause - fully away from the government grift grant game in homeless ‘nonprofit’ agencies - because the “private unsung homeless helpers” are the folks who actually rehouse people and they educated me on how this tragic homeless laundering of government money actually works in Illinois. I was aghast. But only briefly - for it IS Illinois, after all.
I condemn it fully and say that I find this government grift game abhorrent on every level. People are literally dying while all anyone “in charge” of managing this crisis cares about is getting paid and getting re-elected.
But at least I NOW KNOW WHY - no one is ever rehoused ever in Illinois and why I will now die waiting for housing in Illinois. Do you know I have a friend who became abruptly homeless in TX after his elderly Mom died in August this year and he lost her “senior housing” because he is a male in his 30s so he was ineligible to stay there after her death? Yet, in three (3) months - “the system” rehoused him in affordable housing in Texas - after he experienced sudden and unexpected homelessness THERE - as I did here in IL four (4) FULL YEARS AGO. Three months for housing as an able bodied male in TX but 10 years+ for housing in Illinois.
What is wrong in your State, Governor Pritzker? Why is EVERYTHING related to the government so broken here?
It truly makes me wonder if Democrats just TALK ABOUT doing great things but that TALK somehow never materializes into action after the Press Releases. I mean, for five YEARS you talked about how proud you were to declare Illinois a sanctuary State and Chicago a sanctuary City. Yet when the busloads of migrants began arriving from Texas a year ago - you cried foul and ran to President Biden for millions in Federal dollars to help pay for the crisis AND to urge him to build Trump’s Border Wall - to keep more migrants out. And you then announced your new plan to send YOUR MIGRANTS elsewhere- to Detroit and St. Louis. But I thought we were a sanctuary State?
You defend your hypocrisy by declaring it a “budget crisis” - for there is no money to handle 20,000 new homeless people in IL, you bemoan. Well, perhaps you should have been putting $500 million aside, each fiscal year of the past 5 years, in preparation for the arrivals of all the migrants you vocally welcomed - welcomed, that is, IN THEORY ONLY - until they actually showed up on Chicago streets.
I recall back in January 2020 when I first saw all of the road signs which prominently declare “Hate Has No Home Here” and I was beaming with pride at my new State of Illinois. But now, nearly 4 years later, I realize the true slogan of Illinois:
HOPE HAS NO HOME HERE.
Again, Governor Pritzker, when you’re way worse than a Republican red state AND now way worse than a Third World Country, too, in terms of help, housing and resources - you’re obviously doing it all wrong. Homelessness is spiraling out of control in every Illinois town I’ve been in since 2019, 7 towns to be exact, and no one has any money, resources nor any plan to attenuate this crisis. And you just announced all housing and Rental Assistance will be going to the migrants who do remain here and who don’t return to their homeland. I would worry that some smart lawyer might collect everyone like me, waiting for housing for years as disabled Americans in Illinois, who were just overtly discriminated against when you chose to house able bodied young male migrants over disabled older people with complex medical conditions.
This could very well actually become a banana peel to your Administration and your legacy, Governor Sir.
I should never have nearly died in a janky IL rehab nursing home with my post-COVID complications - for want of basic oxygen- but I did. I should have never had to save residents perishing for want of basic insulin or medications there - but I did. And I should have never been physically assaulted by the Nursing Home Administrator for videotaping their violence against memory care residents- but I was. And then when I sent you PROOF that Regulatory Capture (read: corruption) was at play between that Facility and IDPH - you should have closed that Facility to safeguard the lives of other residents there whom I had to leave behind - still languishing there in such a terrorizing pit.
But you did nothing.
And the local police, GCPDepartment, refused to even take a police report for both the assault and the theft of my belongings at the rehab nursing facility - citing that by the time I was able to flee the LOCKED DOWN Facility to save my own life - more than 2 weeks had passed - so I was just out of luck. The reality is: this was just more Downstate small town corruption where that nursing home bribes the cops and pays taxes and uses EMS - so the GCPD were already, in advance, taking the side & running a protection racket for the rehab nursing home. One of the female cops in nearby PBPD told me all about it. 🙄
But you should know that that same Rehab Nursing Home Administrator went on to unfathomably harm others - in Memory Care - where her victims are that much more defenseless and unable to report her crimes. She should have been de-licensed as an Administrator in Illinois as she is a clear and present danger to every disabled person and elder she comes in contact with - wherever she seeks employment.
I tried to hold her accountable every which way my legal training allowed me to conjure up; but, I was only 1 person in a fully broken system of failed Medicaid janky SNFs in Illinois. You failed those elders who were counting on you to act to keep them safe, Governor Pritzker. And that’s a stain on your legacy you will just have to carry forward- for you still refuse to ensure that Administrator is prohibited from working in IL ever again and that Facility is forced to become a SAFE facility in Illinois - OR BE SHUT DOWN. Maybe mentioning that she’s a hardcore Trump supporter will inspire your Office to FINALLY act to do the right thing. 🤷♀️ I just don’t know anymore as nothing seems to convince you to understand the urgency of this matter. And because that’s the thing - literally EVERYTHING comes down to politics in Illinois. And it should not be this way - as you broadly declare how bipartisan Illinois is under your governance.
I begged your Administration to help my friends who were forced to remain in that janky nursing home pit - but you declined to intervene to help those vulnerable elders. You know there’s a prescient warning Bible verse about that, right Governor Pritzker - for those who fail to intervene and seek justice for the weak and the oppressed?
Yet you did nothing in response.
So many died entirely preventable deaths at that Facility because you gave nursing homes blanket immunity in locked down facilities during COVID. You cannot even fathom the unmitigated suffering & death that legal immunity from liability and prosecution caused. I hope you think about that and it rightfully burdens your heart. Because if I have to bear the pain of it all - why shouldn’t you, too? For it was your failed policies and the corruption between <that Facility> and IDPH that perpetrated a culture of depraved indifference to so many unnecessary deaths in our Medicaid SNFs (nursing homes) during the Pandemic.
And THAT is corruption you refuse to correct. Because everyone just accepts Illinois is always ranked at the top of most corrupt States in the Country. So why try to be less corrupt, I suppose is the accepted theory here 🤷♀️
I’m sorry I was so clearly ineffectual in taking on the “plundered for profits by private equity profiteers” corrupt nursing home system in Illinois as ALL OF THOSE UNNECESSARY DEATHS will surely haunt me all the days of my remaining life. I did the best that I could - but even a law degree and my iron will cannot “fix” the Culture of Corruption rotting everything in Illinois.
I was thereafter nearly trafficked three (3) times because housing instability absolutely causes human trafficking - especially in rural Downstate IL where there is no help and no resources. I tried to alert Your Office to this omnipresent human trafficking crisis in Downstate IL - but again, you said nothing in response. Your silence is violence in the face of grave human suffering in reported human trafficking that then goes un-investigated. I can still tell law enforcement (again) who these traffickers are and how to find them (one is in Springfield and the other in the MetroEast IL)- but that’s the thing about Illinois being so corrupt - nobody cares. The powers that be absolutely know that it’s happening and law enforcement is oftentimes aiding and abetting the traffickers in Capone’s Cornfields of Central Illinois. So, it is what it is. When the cops are the criminals and your lying leaders don’t care - what good options did I have? What good options does ANY person in Illinois have?
I have never in my life lived anywhere that the response to the report of serious felonious crimes is: deafening silence. Welcome to Hell - also known as Illinois.
In May this year, I alerted you to the fact that Decatur IL and Macon County is a cravenly corrupt pothole town of despair & despondency. Decatur is what happens when industry collapses in a small town and organized crime moves in to fill the void. I advised you that a local Citizens Group was able to prove that not only did billionaire Howard Buffet try and BUY the position of Top Law Enforcement Agent (Sheriff of Macon County) but that the cops, the deputies, the Mayor, the local media, the judges and the Council are ALL CORRUPT and in on the shady shenanigans there; hence, my nickname for Central IL being part of “Capone’s Cornfields.” Over 50 residents tried to report major felonies by people in positions of power in that town of Decatur IL this past Spring but the Springfield Office of the FBI said: “Nah…pass…we’re not interested in upending any of that…” 😮🤨
When exposing crimes is treated as having never reported crimes - we are ruled by criminals in Illinois. But honestly all of this “Downstate corruption” tracks - because look at all the corruption trials and happenings out of Chicago right now. It’s linear with the fact that I was literally told by a member of organized crime in Decatur: “Look, there is a just a mutual agreement that Chicago lets Downstate IL do it’s own set of things and, in return, we don’t mettle in the affairs of Chicago. So, what’s your angle - you want a cut in? Cuz we can work that. But if you think you’re going to keep playing lady lawyer exposing all of the rackets here - you need to just move far away elsewhere - before you find yourself on a dark, dead-end road one night - digging your own unmarked grave.” 👀🙄
But I guess you are probably conflicted 😐 in the idea that it’s a real bummer when corruption takes over a whole town after a billionaire buys it. As to be sure, I can almost palpably feel your own internal conflict with this particular issue because, well, on the one hand you feel sympathy for the sad sacks left living in such a nightmare corrupt County who are just too poor to move elsewhere - but on the other hand - people talk about how you billionaires feel entitled to such purchases because you, yourself, literally BOUGHT the political opponent you knew you could beat in your reelection last year. To say nothing of the questionable money transfer of $MILLIONS of dollars$ 💰the State of IL gave Bailey for useless wetlands in Xenia as a “thanks for playing along” gladhanding quid pro quo. I'm just asking questions here because thousands of others BEFORE me have asked these same questions and I think the people of Illinois deserve an honest answer.
And that’s another thing: Prairie State Legal Services needs AT LEAST 500 additional lawyers and 300 additional paralegals budgeted for and hired immediately. Literally every failed government agency tells residents to call them for legal help; yet, Prairie State Legal then says that they have 3,000 cases PER WEEK on their dockets ALREADY - and they are refusing all new cases. Again - this is what government failure IN REAL TIME looks like, Governor Pritzker. Maybe the elders getting fined out of existence by a corrupt City COULD fight it - if only Prairie State Legal Services were funded at the level NEEDED by the folks who live here. Because no isolated elder should ever call their City services for HELP with an issue and instead have the City come out and take pictures of the problem they’re struggling to handle alone and that they need assistance with - but then - BECAUSE OF THE SELF-REPORTED PROBLEM - they INSTEAD receive a $300 fine from the City of Decatur instead of help. Then City of Decatur tells those fined to “drop cash ONLY in an unmonitored lockbox in Downtown Decatur” to pay their fine; and then the City Counselor DOUBLES the fine claiming they never received the cash they were told to pay 💰 to Decatur. That town is sketchy as sus.
Also in Central Illinois: Most "massage parlors for male only customers" are just high volume human trafficking sites. There is one located in Springfield Illinois. I spoke to the landlord of that property (about an adjacent nearby rental) who LAUGHED when he told me all about how they never allow the trafficked women out of the Spa and they move them every 6-8 weeks - to ensure they cannot get their bearings to understand where they are and how or where to run for help. But the problem is: law enforcement patronizes this spa. And a high level Springfield politician's car was seen parked in front of it one day - by his wife - in the middle of the day and that caused trouble at home. After that, the landlord simply built a privacy fence around the parking lot so that no prying eyes can SEE whose car is patronizing the trafficked women at the spa for illegal prostitution. And you could have this spa raided but law enforcement will tip off the landlord and somehow KEEP IT GOING while making me look like a liar. If you would like the specific information regarding this one of many trafficking "massage parlor sites" - maybe have the DOJ give me a call. For I do NOT trust local police in Springfield nor ISP to handle the matter as BOTH have been known to frequent this location of known human trafficking. How do I know this? Because I am a legal beaver and writer and dig when someone tells me so overtly how they are criming in Illinois. And I researched these sordid "spas" of human trafficking in Illinois fully.
It’s fully corrupt in Capone's Cornfields. I don’t know how much more blatant and overt they could be AND YET STILL NOT DRAW THE ATTENTION OF PROPER OVERSIGHT AGENCIES AND FEDERAL AUTHORITIES.
Also in Decatur: I was literally told, amid my DV Order of Protection legal matter against the lifelong criminal mafia landlady exactly HOW TO BRIBE THE JUDGE to ensure that I would win - regardless of facts or the law. That’s not justice, Governor Pritzker. That’s corruption.
I was also told by a local Housing Authority, whose list my name had been on for over six (6) months that I could move to the front of the line if I paid the right price to the right person "in charge" at this particular Housing Authority. That's not Fair Housing Wait Lists - that's RICO.
All of these pothole towns of Central Illinois who have created their own corrupt fiefdoms like Decatur, Rantoul, Savoy, Danville, Taylorville, Tolono, Champaign etc - they are getting away with daily malfeasance and misfeasance in public office because, I was informed, that “there exists a tacit agreement to let Capone’s Cornfields of Central IL crime in their own way while they let Chicago run their own separate systems & rackets.” 😳🙄
Why is ANY of this okay?
For those reading along, THIS is what it translates to as a LIVED REALITY when your State is Ranked in the Top 3 in Corruption and nobody in positions of power care - because all of our electeds are making money and getting re-elected and so are all the false front nonprofits who exist to launder money for organized crime and the political machine while they all play the government grant grift game.
It’s as ugly as it gets, folks.
And I am not NOT calling out corruption in Chicago here. I just did not live in Chicago during this long strange journey- so ALL of my experiences are from Downstate IL. You got a story about corruption in Chicago? Drop it in the comments - that’s why I made this an interactive blog format - so others could share their stories with me - should they wish to do so. Educate me on what I missed in seeing Chicago corruption up close - because I’m sure it’s A LOT.
And for those of you reading who don’t understand how corruption intersects with organized crime, realize that Decatur IL only prosecutes poor people for possession of marijuana- while letting all the white monied criminals keep on criming - unbothered. It’s reprehensible and nowhere you would ever want to live. # AVOID
I thereafter encountered a bad actor, lifetime criminal, conjobbing & grifter landlady when trying to find ANY AVAILABLE HOUSING AT ALL IN ILLINOIS. She ultimately engaged in labor trafficking against me and stole my rental assistance from IHDA (she was only entitled to, at most, $650 of the $6500 tenant grant) depriving my prior-to-her landlord of the funds she absconded with and misappropriated. I am now being sued by him because I never made him whole AND I am barred from participating in any FUTURE IL Rental Assistance Grants (should there be any after the migrant crisis) because I failed to make my prior landlord whole under the terms of the IHDA RPProgram - because she was allowed to simply steal ALL OF THE FUNDS for herself - and never be held accountable by the State of Illinois.
Also, she is actually entitled to NONE of the IHDA Grant since she committed domestic violence against me in order to cause me to flee so that she COULD steal the entire IHDA check. Also of note: the check was to be paid to ME as per our joint Landlord-Tenant application yet IHDA sent it to her. So I was rendered homeless in a pit of a Downstate DV homeless shelter while she laughed all the way to the bank. She deprived my past landlord of HIS rightful payment under the Program AND deprived me of FUTURE housing rental payments that <could have> secured immediate temporary rental housing for me at that time of her domestic violence against me.
Why are such catastrophic government failures and overt criming by really dangerous people just OK with Your Administration, Governor Pritzker? I ask this not in condemnation but as a person with a shattered heart having to witness all of this brokenness & corrupt criming all about Central Illinois.
And AGAIN, as with the corrupt SNF Administrator engaged in overt Regulatory Capture with IDPH, I reported this mafia criminal fraudster landlady to EVERY LEVEL OF IL GOVERNMENT - all to no avail. I have firsthand knowledge of her committing Pandemic Unemployment fraud, Pandemic Rental Assistance Fraud, PPP SBA Loan Fraud, credit card fraud and Medicare fraud - just to make a few of her rackets. I reported ALL OF THIS but because she’s mafia, backed by organized crime - via small town corruption - she’s simply UNTOUCHABLE in Illinois. And that’s massive injustice that most people of good conscience simply cannot abide, Governor Pritzker.
I thereafter told you that she went on to prey on vulnerable students in the Foreign Student Exchange Program after I single-handedly shut her down by publicly exposing what she did to me in her town of Decatur. No one else would rent from her AND she couldn’t take the chance that anyone she DID rent to next might have seen my warnings about what a criminal she is - so she simply moved on to a new and different group of vulnerables: disabled veterans and foreign exchange students. All trapped in her home, without food or transportation, lacking any supportive environment and literally no ability to flee when her homicidal rage turned on them. She went cruising and boozing on a 10 day cruise leaving a wheelchair-dependent vulnerable veteran in the basement with no help, food or ability to go to the bathroom.
And she was never held accountable for ANY of these crimes.
I did a FOIA request on her residence from the Decatur PD and it produced over 100 pages of police calls to her home because of her violence and malevolence. She is a full-time predator in the Decatur Community; one who should be cut off from ALL ACCESS to plundering & abusing & terrorizing the unsuspecting and vulnerable public, wouldn't you think? Because that’s who she preys upon: the vulnerable with no place else to go and the isolated whose family in far away foreign countries cannot help them when they cry out against her violence. Governor Pritzker and I told Your Office all about her when the corrupt local police refused to do ANYTHING about her.
And you did nothing. Your silence is another kind of violence. And that just breaks my heart all over again.
Why did every other State in America form DOJ Strikeforce Teams to claw back these stolen & misappropriated State Pandemic funds and prosecute the fraudsters like her; yet, every Agency of your IL government told me “they have no idea how to demand the return of and/or prosecute the unlawful theft of State Pandemic Funds because that’s never been done in Illinois?” I contacted Decatur PD, the Macon County State’s Attorney, the local Republican representative Dan Caulkins, IHDA, OIG and - my personal favorite- your IL Attorney Generals Office. Barb H. told me, as a lawyer with the IL AG, that she had no idea how to demand the return of stolen State pandemic funds from a known lifelong criminal landlady in Illinois. Seriously, where do you find these people to work in the AG’s Office as alleged lawyers? It’s not rocket science, people. You send the thieving landlady a letter telling the criminal thief she has 10 days to make restitution to my former landlord and me - whose IHDA Rental Assistance she misappropriated through intentional fraud and theft - or the State of IL will prosecute her. I absolutely guarantee you she would return the money immediately IF ONLY the State of IL knew how to use the threat of prosecution as a tool to force scofflaws like this mafia landlady into returning stolen State pandemic funds. Your IL AG’s Office does NOT know how to prosecute theft of State funds? Really, Governor Pritzker? Then if that is true as THAT OFFICE TELLS ME IT IS - then the IL AG OFFICE needs to be disbanded and have the Feds take over justice and critical consumer issues in Illinois. ⚖️🤷♀️
And you should know that I could never even lawfully REGISTER my handicapped plates in Illinois or get a valid driver’s license here? Why? Because your DMVs, your Secretary of State and your IL AG Office all told me 37 DIFFERENT ANSWERS of the documents I require to accomplish this very basic task. This is not a “she’s too stupid, homeless and poor to understand the process” issue, Governor Pritzker. This is a “she is legally trained with degrees to back it up yet the broken government systems here simply cannot and do not function properly” problem.
This is a matter not unlike how your IDES and IHDA people could not unwind the failure of government that happened on their end so they just declared the problem “unable to be fixed.” There is a pervasive “kick the can to someone else in some other government office” mentality by the State workers here that is causing your WHOLE STATE to fail - systemwide. I’m not too stupid to discern how to get new plates and a new IL license - for I’ve managed it FOR DECADES IN 3 other States! Your government workers simply have no incentive to work - so they just give people a wrong answer hoping to kick the can of required knowledge and work by State employees elsewhere. And speaking of your government workers NOT working, IDES did not work for a FULL YEAR plus after the onset of the Pandemic. No wonder claims like mine simply never processed. And then when they FINALLY did come back to work in July 2021, they just declared the backlog of claims like mine still sitting there “unable to be processed in 2021 because those claims should have been paid on 2020 - so too bad for all of you, folks!”
And the dirty little secret is that NO ONE in the whole State of Illinois works on Fridays in IL - so every week is a 3-day weekend with a future pension included. Worse still, are the workers in the IL AG's Office who work literally one afternoon per week, 2 days per month or 24 days our of the entire year and collect a 6 figure cushy State salary - AND a future pension. Given that the State Government Pension Fund is the biggest financial albatross around the necks of most people in Illinois via excessive taxation to pay for it, just perhaps you could DEMAND that our State workers actually, you know, WORK for their paychecks and pensions?
And to be clear, I’m not saying I’m “the lack of affordable housing expert” in Illinois - because I am not. No one is. For how can ANYONE be the expert on that which doesn’t even exist in Illinois!? But I can assure you that I know more and have been doing more and learning more in the actual trenches of this IL housing crisis quagmire - all for free for the State of Illinois for 4 years running - and doing much more than your newly appointed “Housing Czar” earning 6 figures and a permanent State pension does. You could pay me one year of her salary and benefits and I would not only house myself and at least 4 other housing insecure disabled older adults with me- with that amount of money - but I would also have demonstrable RESULTS of other people actually safely rehoused at the end of that year through programs that are proven successes elsewhere.
A recent news article just celebrated 25 new apartments for the homeless in Springfield with all the supportive services on-site for them. Great! Now build something similar in Chatham or Sherman for the disabled 55+ homeless people like me. We are generally quiet, too old for drama and loud noises and we tend to look after each other. But make it a 50 unit, affordable housing building because medically-vulnerable seniors are now 25% of the newly homeless since the Pandemic. Then build 500 more housing co-ops just like it - all throughout Illinois- because our population is only getting older and the need for affordable housing for seniors greater - each day.
Then start building affordable housing at the scale needed in IL. Because even housed people earning 40k at a job but only bringing home 2k per month no longer qualify for apartments in Springfield which are now $1400 per month - thanks to housing inflation in this economy - because now they, too, don’t meet the “Fair Housing computation of must earn 3x rent” in most places in IL. The working poor working 3 jobs just for a roof over their heads is a separate issue all by itself - and a precarious one at that.
As stated above, Your Administration appropriated $365 Million for FY23/24 to end homelessness in IL. By end of FY24 in July next year, virtually none of the actually homeless people will have been safely rehoused and yet ~ where did that $365 Million Dollars go? All to pay the corrupt nonprofits and Public Housing Authorities THEIR SALARIES, 6 figure bonuses & incentives & rebuild their cushy offices - meanwhile, no one who is actually homeless will have been put in a home. Why? Because IL is short roughly 1 million affordable housing units.
The Point In Time Count for 2022 indicated that there are roughly 68,000 homeless people on any given night unhoused in Chicago alone. But because the point in time count is NEVER ACCURATE and always grossly UNDERestimates the actual number of homeless in Illinois (it has never counted me btw - not once in 4 years of homelessness) because so many of the “Hidden Homeless” are simply not counted. Who are the Hidden Homeless? Those of us living in our cars, couch surfing or living with friends, living fully isolated lives in janky motels, short term AirBnBs and in the woods - just to name just a few places we dwell.
Now to that 68,000 for Chicago only, we have to give a ballpark estimate of 25,000 additional homeless people in Downstate Illinois (both ‘hidden’ and street homeless) folks. Add to that the 20,000 migrants who have arrived in Illinois in the past year - and suddenly you have in excess of 100,000 people IN NEED OF nonexistent, not even built yet, unavailable permanent, safe and affordable housing in Illinois.
But that’s WHY the P.I.T count each February done by the Continuum of Care always grossly UNDERestimates the number of homeless, hidden homeless and housing insecure folks in Illinois. Because if the good people of Illinois had ANY NOTION AT ALL that homelessness was allowed to spiral 🌀 out of control to over 100,000 people here - they would suddenly <understand> why there is a panhandler on every corner begging for help AND those same good people of Illinois just might start asking some tougher questions of their elected officials about “just what are they doing to attenuate this crisis in Illinois?!”
Answer: NOTHING. Not a single thing.
Because I have been on the Continuum of Care State-wide registry for ANY AVAILABLE HANDICAPPED HOUSING in Illinois for 4 years now - and they can’t even effectively house 1 woman in a wheelchair into permanent, safe and affordable housing GIVEN 4 YEARS? And to be fully transparent, I indicated I was willing to live in ANY COUNTY in IL (except Macon County because of the aforementioned bonkers level of public corruption there) and most homeless people want to prioritize and choose ONLY 1 County to live in because it’s what they know and where they’re from / and I get that. But even with THAT wide range of ALL AVAILABLE COUNTIES IN ALL OF IL - there is just no AVAILABLE affordable, handicapped housing in Illinois for me - and thousands more also waiting for same just like me here.
And let’s say that the Illinois Point In Time Homeless Count needs to be effectively DOUBLED in order to accurately & truly reflect the number of homeless, hidden homeless and housing insecure people in Illinois - because so many remain FULLY HIDDEN so as not to be arrested by police for the ‘crime of being poor in IL’ than this crisis is much worse than actually reflected in the data So, we are actually at, more accurately, 200,000 “housing insecure & homeless & hidden homeless” in Illinois. That’s nearly a quarter of a million people and rising, Governor Pritzker. What exactly IS your plan amidst this spiraling and escalating crisis in Illinois? Throwing LOTS MORE MILLIONS and good money after bad to the same corrupt Agencies who have failed to ever rehouse anyone ever in Illinois guarantees failure, Governor Pritzker. So what is the actual plan now? And I don’t mean “The Plan” you announced this year
because I can already inform you that doing the same thing over and over again each year but expecting different results is the very definition of insanity.
So, is $365 Million enough to manage this crisis - that you, Governor Pritzker, were lauded & applauded for appropriating SO MUCH to the problem? The math of that figure indicates that’s only $3,650 per homeless person in Illinois - if you use the 100,000 homeless number (vs the MORE ACCURATE 200,000 number of actually homeless, hidden homeless, housing insecure and migrants.) How does THAT AMOUNT of money help anyone secure safe, affordable, permanent housing?
Answer: It doesn’t.
Because I will never benefit from a dime of that $3,650.00 because- as I said - it doesn’t actually <trickle down> to the homeless people in need of the housing: instead it is grabbed by the Corporate welfare whores at all the nonprofits and Public Housing Authorities- to pay themselves and live high off the government hog teat.
But you see - that just proves my point: there’s no money in actually SOLVING homelessness. Corrupt cronies dependent on that government teat for their own exorbitant salaries and bonuses have a perverse disincentive to NOT HOUSE ANYONE because more heads in the shelter beds = more millions for them so they will never work to <actually cure> homelessness because they would then put themselves out of a cushy State job 🤷♀️
So, NEXT JULY when you AGAIN appropriate an unprecedented, say, $500Million to “cure homelessness” we’re all going to be onto the scam. And we will know that money has nothing to do with actually housing the homeless but everything to do with funding ongoing corruption in Illinois.
You recently announced the merger of 3 known failed IL early childhood government agencies: DCFS, DHS & ISBE. You cannot possibly believe creating one giant failed government conglomerate will be more beneficial to the people than 3 separate failures!? Why don’t you merge the 4 failed agencies of DHS-Medicaid, IHDA, with IDPH and IDES while you’re at it so everyone will know from the outset that they will never recover any unemployment wages while they’re homeless and they will never get any rent assistance while they try in vain to secure housing in IL? As long as we’re lumping all the failed IL government agencies together - why not do it for the poverty ADULTS in IL too?
The dangerously untrue old adage of “I’m from the government and I’m here to help!” has never been MORE dangerously untrue than in Illinois under your Administration, Governor Pritzker. Because not only did all of these government agencies fail to help me at all - they actually caused genuine harm to me instead - and nearly got me trafficked and killed.
In my August 2021 letter, I begged you to end Aetna as a third party administrator of Medicaid in IL. I advised you that Aetna also keeps a database of fraudulent, nonproviders to artificially “puff up their provider directories” in order to APPEAR legitimate. Your Administration just fined BCBS for this same fraudulent crime - why not go after Aetna, too? Let me guess - because Aetna pays the proper “reelection donation amounts” to stay out of any regulatory scrutiny in IL, right? Because nothing else explains a Medicaid plan that lists 137 GP doctors but 129 of who are deceased, not accepting new patients or never accepted Aetna insurance EVER. They are perpetrating a full fraud on the State of IL and the residents who are unfortunate enough to be burdened with Aetna as their insurance provider. And I told you about this problem and so many other CRIMINAL Aetna problems back in my August 2021 letter.
And you did nothing in response.
I say - fine them into bankruptcy for their abhorrent Corporate malfeasance.
Aetna has denied me pain management care, Huntingtons Disease care, post-COVID care, dental care, respiratory therapy care, mental wellness care and orthopedic care. They have been called out by Federal regulators for having an excessively high denial of care rate for their poverty Medicare Advantage Plans. I have been waiting on a total knee replacement for 3 years because my knee surgery recovery is dependent upon safe, handicapped, permanent housing - which is nonexistent in Illinois. You actually included Medicaid as a source of remedy for CURING homelessness in Illinois in your 2023 Homeless Plan - when Aetna’s fatal medical decisions & denials are CAUSING HOMELESSNESS TO SPIKE in Illinois. And FYI - their nurse case managers have ZERO UNDERSTANDING of homelessness in IL so if you’re waiting on Aetna Medicaid to hand you a “Homelessness Cure Plan for IL” - you will be waiting forever.
Housing is what cures homelessness, Governor Pritzker, and right now IL is short an estimated 1 million needed, NEWLY BUILT units of affordable housing. We need actual additional new houses and housing stock and money in OUR HANDS to pay the rent/mortgage payments to solve homelessness. But there’s no money for solving homelessness in the giant nonprofit and PHAs government grant grift game if homelessness is actually solved - now is there? So, it’s not like I fail to understand what is driving the housing crisis here in IL. For I understand it too well, actually.
It’s corruption. And State worker incompetence. A lethal cocktail if you’re me - or so many thousands of others here in Illinois just like me - and on the DECIMATING EDGE of that lethal cocktail.
Aetna treats the poorest of the poor on Medicaid even worse than they do poverty elders in Medicare Advantage Plans in terms of no available doctors, no actual services and a 90% denial rate of all but the most routine of entry level care. But I told you ALL OF THIS back in August 2021 and yet you just keep rewarding them with multi-year Medicaid contracts in IL. 🤷♀️
Where is your compassion, Governor Pritzker? Do you understand that Aetna is literally practicing eugenics on poverty populations in Illinois? Are you going to take this to the extreme Canada has and just allow the poor to choose State-assisted suicide as the cure to all to unattended poverty? Because that’s where all of these social problems caused by rampant corruption in IL with no one working on REAL solutions is heading, Governor. Is that really the future you want for Illinois: Where the poor have no other OPTION than to apply and ask the State to legally off themselves because they cannot suffer the crazy-making being without safe housing and real healthcare causes them? How horrifying. How deeply horrifying.
I was denied lifesaving treatments by Aetna at every turn - including the denial of proper dental care for FOUR 4 YEARS. I lost 3 teeth in those four years due to Aetna’s refusal to provide timely & appropriate dental cleaning treatment and care. And no when I finally paid for a dental exam privately, out of pocket in August this year 2023, and, as the direct result of Aetna’s refusal of a medically necessary $100 deep periodontal cleaning in October 2020 this is the end result of Aetna’s craven Corporate greed:
I now have oral cancer.
Oral cancer directly linked by the dentist to failure to provide routine PREVENTATIVE oral treatments like a basic deep cleaning 4 years ago. Because the Medicaid dentists would do NO ORAL CLEANING without it being the medically necessary deep periodontal cleaning - which Aetna denied coverage of for 4 years.
And because IL is so corrupt, and because trying to find safe handicapped housing is fully impossible in Illinois and because I’m so tired of organized criming evildoers trying to traffic me (and so many others), and because Aetna Medicaid is so broken and provides nearly nonexistent care - I have chosen to forego any (oral) cancer treatments. Because Aetna will just deny all of that, too, anyway.
Yes, you read that right. I’d rather die than to have to continue to fight all of these fundamentally broken systems in Capone’s Cornfields IL. So, in that sense, aren’t we, in actuality, already THERE in terms of the poor being killed off in Illinois much like in Canada?
And had I not gone OUTSIDE THE CONSTANT FACE OF NO OF AETNA MEDICAID in Illinois and privately paid for care - specifically upper body thermography for a breast cancer screening that happened to detect the oral cancer - I wouldn’t even KNOW that I have cancer right now. That is how negligent Aetna is with primary, basic PREVENTATIVE care. But I guess my life doesn’t matter so long as Aetna’s political donor class dollars keep rolling in to the political reelection machine in Illinois, am I right?
And I need you to realize that that thermography was made possible by private persons on Twitter who sent me assistance this Summer when they read my online Pandemic Memoir. Their help gave me MENTAL WELLNESS CARE for the first time in 4 years - which Aetna has systematically denied - and their help provided me the thermography that ultimately detected my oral cancer. And it’s noteworthy that even had Aetna paid for a routine mammogram- THAT would not have detected my oral cancer. As our leader in Illinois, you need to seriously reflect upon Aetna’s abhorrent denial rate to Medicaid members and how those MILLIONS of people just aren’t alive to tell their Aetna horror story anymore. So I speak FOR THEM, too, when I tell you MY story. How fitting that November is “Oral Cancer Awareness Month” isn’t it?
These whole past 4 years when your government failed to function as required, it was total internet strangers on Twitter who saved my life again and again. I am still alive today only BECAUSE OF THEM - and IN SPITE of the cataclysmic failures of your fully failed government agencies. I owe these kind internet strangers a debt I can never repay. They also allowed me to live in a comfortable home for what will undoubtedly be the last Summer of my life - AND FINISH THIS PANDEMIC MEMOIR - so that MY STORY could be told. Left to YOUR system of failed government- I would have been having a heat stroke while trying to live in my 20 yr old car amid the Central Prairie oppressive Summer heat this year. If My Story isn’t a damning indictment of failed government and a powerful testimony of how “give the money to the people and they will help each other and they will do it better than the government ever could” - then I don’t know what is.
Housing is healthcare, Governor Pritzker. And healthcare is SUPPOSED TO INCLUDE actual access to actual medical treatments. But when you are denied BOTH in the State of Illinois- SUDDENLY pandemic-related, first-time-poverty becomes an actual DEATH SENTENCE in Illinois.
To be abundantly clear, I am in no way suicidal. I just do NOT see the point - when it’s never going to get any better here and things will always be a total dumpster fire of governmental dysfunction. And I’m just SO TIRED of fighting that dysfunction on 50 different levels and NEVER making any headway or having even “little victories” along the way.
So congratulations - the IL Corruption Machine finally defeated my relentless persistence and my iron will I once had to make everything better for everyone suffering here.
The full rot of corruption is ENTRENCHED here and I cannot fix it alone. And nobody else seems to care - because Americans just ACCEPT that our government is corrupt and largely just shrug about it.
And that’s just really unfortunate that this is just where we are and just how my story ends: because it seems to me like someone who fought so hard to keep others alive during the Pandemic and who fought so hard to hold bad people accountable during the Pandemic and who fought so hard to stay alive myself during the Pandemic- ought to be allowed to live.
But because hope has no home here in Illinois - death is my only option. I simply cannot prevail against a corrupt behemoth like the intransigence of corrupt Illinois governmental agencies. And so I’m just out of options, out of medical treatments - because I told you YEARS AGO Aetna is Satan incarnate and does not actually serve the residents they are paid millions to help; and, I’m frankly out of my relentless persistence to continue to try and fix the unfixable or keep trying to draw attention to these broken systems in IL - about which you seem unable to hear me for at least the past 2 years - which means this is just how it goes in Illinois and things are never going to get any better.
For I now realize it’s all broken by design and nothing is ever intended to help anyone find their way back to a life wherein they can thrive and have any kind of healthy, meaningful life ever again. That’s all I ever wanted though - just so you know, Governor Pritzker: a safe and affordable home out of housing instability and homelessness, a small home able to accommodate my wheelchair where I could continue to write and somehow find meaning and purpose in all this (entirely unnecessary) suffering- to help me build a brighter tomorrow for myself and so many others.
That’s not a big ask, Governor.
I deserve the OPPORTUNITY to live in permanent safe surroundings that brings out the softness in me - not the survival in me. For 4 long years, I’ve been forced into repeated housing instability & therefore fight or flight mode. Fight or flight mode activates the cortisol stress hormone in your brain & was never intended to be a permanent place of residence. But for me - and thousands others like me left languishing with no available housing in IL - it has become my permanent home. And that takes a toll after so long, Governor Pritzker.
The following are listed as “barriers to housing by Il Continuum of Care agencies. Notice: Every barrier identified is the fault of the UNHOUSED PERSON - and never mentions the fact that the most constant barrier to housing in IL is that there is simply none available and that the wait-list is 10-12 years long for safe, affordable housing. The Continuum of Care in IL is just not a serious agency anywhere in IL so long as they continue this overt gaslighting - and always fail to acknowledge the LACK OF 1 MILLION NEEDED NEW AFFORDABLE HOUSING/HOMES in IL - they cannot help anyone so long as they continue to do their work in false narratives and untruths.
And it’s fully tragic that now, because of the bungled migrant crisis, I, and so many others like me who have been patiently waiting FOR YEARS in Illinois for such affordable housing - will just now die in that ongoing and never-ending wait for housing in Illinois.
I need you to understand this is absolutely a “Your Administration” problem in as much as NO GOVERNMENT AGENCY under your stewardship is functioning properly nor working full-time - and given how tragically YEARS behind they are in their respective workloads due to the Pandemic, I would declare a mandatory 60 week work week beginning January 2nd for ALL <serves the public> governmental agencies in Illinois, if I were you. Because their failure to function or work for YEARS in Illinois during the Pandemic is a disgrace. And the blood of these governmental agency failures is absolutely on your hands for MOST of my past 4 years in IL because the Agencies that have failed me so catastrophically are all State level agency failures: DFS, IDES, IHDA, IDES, ISP, IL Elder Abuse Hotline, IL AG, SOS, DMV, OIG, Prairie State Legal and IHRC - just to name a few. This is the end stage result of YOUR government, under your leadership, failing in real time - for me - and for so many others just like me here in Illinois.
My current housing of an AirBnB “temporary rental” had a rent increase beyond what I can even earn in a month beginning in January 2024 - so the TRUE REALITY of these catastrophic failures is this: I will die of entirely preventable oral cancer, alone & shivering 🥶 in my car in the frozen tundra of Winter in Downstate IL. Why did my life, as NOT a member of your rich donor class, not matter to you, Governor Pritzker?
If, at any time, you would like my input or advice on HOW TO ACTUALLY FIX any of the 500+ different social issues currently collapsing in IL - which I’ve previously written to you about - please know that I will always make time to hear Your Side of these IL government failures, Governor Pritzker.
But I do not want to read even one more article about what you’re GONNA DO to fix things. Because in that “you’re gonna do” constantly circulating news stories whirlwind is a gap: an enormous gap that causes death and despondent despair & truly traumatic tribulations. The gap between acknowledging that all of these problems exist in Illinois, budgeting money ostensibly for them - BUT THEN THE GAP: OF NEVER REALIZING the actual work of actually helping the people of IL, with all of that appropriated budget money, who are languishing, perishing and dying daily - actually receive the affordable safe housing, medical care, SNF care, DV care, veteran care, addiction care ACTUALLY HAPPENS - & ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY REACHES THE PEOPLE IT WAS INTENDED BY YOU TO HELP. Because in many corrupt parts of this corrupt State, that money NEVER reaches We the People. Ever.
But that’s where I’ve been for four (4) years, Governor Pritzker: standing in THAT GAP - trying to plug every hole in this sinking, rudderless ship of chaos & corruption as I desperately tried to understand why NOTHING works here - specifically and especially where people and their government intersect - everything inexplicably fails. But when looked through the lens of organized crime and corruption - suddenly EVERYTHING about Illinois makes sense.
And I’ve been Standing in That Gap for God too, Governor Pritzker - seeking justice against the oppressors, rebuking the corrupt, comforting and rendering aid & resources to the homeless, the addicted, the abused, the fatherless, the widows/widowers and the forgotten - because that is what Jesus has called us to do. But because all of these systemic failures have now dealt ME a fatal blow (oral cancer) - that VERY LARGE AND WIDENING BY THE DAY <gap> is now fully exposed and collapsing upon itself. I beg of you, Governor, Sir - rush to that gap and HELP US.
Even if you now HATE ME for being the truth-teller and want to kill the messenger- I can understand that reactionary response. And I realize that by ending my Pandemic Memoir with this letter to you - I can expect no help ever from your Administration. But what have I really lost 🤷♀️ For I got help once 4 YEARS AGO IN MY LETTER WRITING TO YOU about all of these challenges and opportunities to do better in Illinois. If anything, I may have gained the attention of someone more willing to intervene to help the distressed and marginalized in Illinois. But to you I say this, Governor Pritzker: if you’re mad at me for calling all this tommyrot out - that’s fine. But I beg of you to rush to save all the other vulnerables who are NOT me. Because people are literally dying out here on the daily. And I can certainly understand why my life may likely no longer matter to you - but all the other vulnerables are still counting on you to step up, acknowledge the critical problems and lapses and immediately demand that the IL ACT SWIFTLY and begin to SAVE LIVES vs cost people like me their lives. Poverty caused by an unprecedented pandemic should not have been a death sentence for me. But it is for me in your State, Sir.
So, I beg of you - find the heart inside yourself so many Americans have embraced and championed and prove to us ALL that you are deserving of their deep adoration. The gentleman JB who ran for Governor of IL in 2017 definitely cared about truth and justice, right vs wrong, the marginalized and forgotten - and he made it a point to care about the welfare of all people of Illinois, rich and poor. Find THAT GUY again. For Illinois, especially the good people of Downstate Illinois, have never needed THAT GUY more than they do right now.
Know that I did my level best amidst a constantly sinking ship these past four years in Illinois. But it’s in your hands now - as I go down. And whether the State of Illinois rises and sails onward to a better future for all; or, crashes and drowns - is entirely dependent upon what you do in this moment. THIS is The Moment that will define your legacy and your future. Godspeed, Governor Pritzker. As always, I wish you only the best and I will continue to pray for you everyday- for as long as now lasts for me.
After I published this Epilogue- which is largely a really awful critique of your failed governmental agencies in IL these past 4 years, I began to post a link to it on YOUR daily tweets. To your tremendous credit, Governor Pritzker, you did not and have not blocked me from your Twitter account. (I realize others in your Administration “manage” the account for you - but still.) Given all the current legal cases about IF public service politicians have the right to block & censor constituents on social media, I think it speaks to your integrity & earnest willingness to hear “the other side” that your Administration didn’t just “ban me” and move on. I never attack you personally in this critique - as far too many horrible people do on your social media, nor would I ever. For the debate is lost, if slander & childish name-calling are one’s only approach. So, for this I want to say “Thank you, Governor Pritzker. For it takes a truly decent person to hear a long list of valid criticisms - and not just immediately shut it down.”
On the upside for you though, I’m sure MY latest unfortunate fate makes you glad to be you instead of me and you can now rest assured that THIS is my last communication to you. I am sure you will take great solace in that fact. And I don’t know what else to say except to leave you with some lyrics from the popular song “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks- the lyrics of which I have altered slightly to fit my situation:
Seasons in the Sun: “Goodbye to you, my trusted friend. Together we climbed hills and passed new Bills. Goodbye, my friend it’s hard to die…when all the birds are flying South now in the sky. And now that the Spring is gone from the air…Goodbye, my Dad - please pray for me. I was the advocate of the family. You always taught me right from wrong. Goodbye, my Dad it’s hard to die. But no one can say I didn’t try... But now the chill is in the air…Forgotten people lay everywhere…Just think of me and I’ll be there.
Sincerely,
Lady314Justice
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several people have asked for the link to donate to my GoFundMe for my oral/dental care & ongoing evaluation (preliminary results indicated a contained area of abnormal cells where my tooth fell out) AND to help secure new housing for me in January. To everyone who helps me know that I will never stop working towards a better America for all of us - until my very last breath. ❤️ Here is the link to my GoFundMe:
My Amazon Wish List: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2NL3CMR12PKEN?ref_=wl_share
For those unable to donate (trust me, I understand - we’re all struggling now) please write to the CEO of Aetna Insurance and beg them to provide me with ALL OF THE DENTAL CARE I REQUIRE:
Email: Karen.lynch@cvshealth.com
I thank you ❤️ with my whole heart.
SPECIAL FRIENDS DEDICATION
List of Donors Who Carried Me Through & Kept Me Alive While the IL Government Left Me for Dead
Some “donors and helpers and angels” who helped get include, by TwitterFam name or GoFundMe partial Donor name only:
Rochelle in NJ
Pam Rou
Phoebe Eas
Riley P
William H
Peter Pel
Karen Mar
Heidi Koc
Lynne Lev
David Kin
Amie Zam
Kathryn Lan
Mark Eng
Richard Pac
Hannah Llo
Genita Wal
Daphne Haj
Neva Spr
Paige Fic
Louise Mil
Sandra Ken
Layla Abu
Catherine Mac
Michael Mil
Casandra Hal
Louanne Hin
Laura Coo
Maureen Rog
Elaine Mar
Cheryle Lee
Spring Bri
Paul Cli
Kristine Fen
Hollee Kle
Julia Alp
Bianca Dem
Anthony Mar
Sam Tho
Duaa Zai
Margaret Com
Rouh Chn
Eve Ken
Cherie Li
Lauri G
Carese Dav
Kevin Can
Vanessa Gom
Daphne Haj
Richard Tat
Jean Osh
Gabe Ste
Madeline Git
Sara Gal
Ashley Tay
Andhrea Tag
Lou Wat
Valeri Han
Kevin Har
Thomas Dav
Nicole Tho
Pam Mil
Jace W
Ryan Bre
Pamela Wal
Roseann Zog
Lauren Hes
Laura Coo
David Bou
Tamara Car
Anne Zie
Ulrika Ste
Ronna Wei
DawnMarin Del
Jill LeV
Valeria Cul
Kathy McG
Bill Qui
Margaret Was
Sheila Gra
Donna Plo
Maureen Rog
David Wes
Kelly Aro
Cynthia Pie
Valerie Han
Melani Col
Cindy Ter
Charles Fis
Edna San
Melissa Wol
Paula Par
Rebecca Whi
Barbara Tow
Rebecca Ken
Julia Gaw
Johanna Bea
Hayes Tho
Shannon Sch
Kenneth Sco
Jamie Tro
Sarah Gre
Anne Pad
Sara Gal
Mary Sny
Bill She
Yvette Mil
Christine Rom
Garardo Bal
Timothy Pra
Linda Fly
Ann Sta
Erika Fra
William Bar
Sabrina Hay
Julie Cri
Nick Car
I regret that there is one person who made such an enormous difference in the quality of my life these past 4 years - as things would have been WAY WORSE without her help - but whose name I cannot publish for personal safety reasons and considerations - FOR HER. But I hope she knows that I love her, I always have, and that I thank her, too, from the bottom of my heart. ❤️ Give the kitties a hug from me and remember to save a sunflower from your garden for me - in my memory.
Dear Friends:
Back in August 2023, I shared a similar “GoFundMe update” and I’m doing it here to, again, express my full gratitude to you all for helping me.
I don’t know if you have ever been humbled in having to ask others for help to survive but, if not, I can assure you it certainly fills your heart with boundless optimism and compassion and helps you to dare to believe that just maybe there really is more good than bad still in our World today. What you have done for me IS truly extraordinary and I would like to share with you just how and why your kind donations literally help secure my housing, my health, my safety and my calm peace of mind - all things which are genuinely *required* when trying to complete a Pandemic Memoir.
First, let me tell you about my sadly still frantic finances: I receive roughly $1000 a month due to being disabled from Huntington’s Disease and immediately $800 of that goes to my housing. After I get a tank of gas for the month ($70 in IL) and pay for my long-term storage of my belongings ($65) - there is just no money left each month - not for anything else I might need. And I am actually LUCKY to have this rental as 1 bedroom “market rate” apartments have increased to over $1100/mth + utilities in IL due to hyper-inflation in the rental market where the demand far outpaces the rental housing supply right now. And I also do NOT qualify for “market rate rentals” due to the required “Fair Housing Computation” that I must make 3x rent to even qualify or apply. My housing options are NONEXISTENT in Illinois right now. Please understand how consequently precarious and fraught with anxiety that makes my entire existence right now. Frighteningly precarious, is the answer. But your donations allowed me to pay for my housing through the end of Autumn and to pay my monthly storage through the end of this year for all of my stored belongings. And you cannot know the RAW ANXIETY that relieved me of knowing that those things were paid for IN ADVANCE by your kind donations. I am so thankful for you.
My Hungtington’s Diagnosis is a serious, genetic neurodegenerative condition that I sadly inherited from my mother. I don’t know how to accurately describe MY Huntington’s progression for you other than to say: imagine every day that you wake up you encounter your body betraying you in a new and different complex way that you must simply learn to adapt to. Some days, I awake and my right leg simply does not engage which puts me immediately back into my wheelchair, which I am in and out of depending, in large part, on how well I am able to treat and attenuate my own symptoms.
I was really fortunate to have had a really good neuro-psych in St. Louis and GA for 10 years. When I first met the GA doc in 2009, I had a previous <bad> neurologist prescribe 23 different BigPharma meds to try and control my Huntingtons symptoms yet I was full time in a wheelchair and spiraling the drain healthwise rapidly nonetheless. That brilliant GA neuropsych threw away all of those medications except 1 and ordered natural supplements for me which almost immediately improved my health overall. She also ordered daily Huntington’s balance and strengthening exercises and prescribed an all natural, organic, “clean” and no chemicals diet. At the time, I could easily afford all of these things so I benefited from almost immediate restored overall health as a result and was out of my wheelchair and walking again. I thank God everyday for the informed and good doctors who have helped me through the years.
Fast forward to the Lockdowns of COVID 2020 and my sudden catastrophic health following a nearly fatal case of COVID in March/April 2020 during the American Pandemic and things went dire on me quickly in that circumstance - medically. My health rapidly declined, I had almost no food so could not eat at all - let alone properly eat - and I landed back in my wheelchair. Because the one thing that guarantees my health takes a dive is my own inability to manage my disease and engage in self-care. And there simply just is no “self-care” when you are left penniless by the incompetence of the State of IL governance.
All of this is to tell you, when you donated to me these past 2 years, you gave me back my HEALTHY doctor-prescribed diet which is very similar to the “Daniel Fast” and includes no meat, dairy, added sugars or fake sugars and no bread; but it IS heavy on organic fresh fruits, veggies, beans, legumes, rice and vegetable juices. And I don’t know if you have grocery shopped lately but “organic fresh fruits and vegetables” are the second most expensive thing you can buy after meat. So, in donating to me you gave me the ability to eat healthy and manage my disease from the nutritional standpoint which is crucial. My Aldi grocery bill is $108 a week which is $432.00 a month and I only receive $260 in EBT/SNAP. Food is life and HEALTHY food equals a healthy life. I am so thankful to you for this food which properly nourishes my mind, body and soul. Thank you.
And in helping me and donating to my GoFundMe you allowed me to order my supplements which are doctor prescribed but which Medicaid will not cover. Because in their infinite stupidity, they fund SICKNESS not WELLNESS - so they are happy to pay for BigPharma meds that land me in my wheelchair and then in a nursing home, invariably costing way more, yet they will not pay for the natural supplements which actually help stabilize my chorea symptoms. My supplements are $154.00 monthly which seems like a small price to pay to stay out of a wheelchair. But poverty is so often a cruel death sentence in Illinois and under current Illinois policies that is unlikely to change.
Having healthy foods and my health supplements/natural medications keeps me out of my wheelchair. And being out of my wheelchair enables me to engage in my balance exercises. And because I rent from a home that has a pool, my doctor recommended “water aerobics and water strengthening exercises” for me. That’s great except I had no money for the swimsuit or the water weights he suggested. But thanks to you, I did. The cost for BOTH a swimsuit and the weights was $58. You cannot know how much your kindness and generosity is supporting my wellness when the government system is determined to let it circle the drain. You may never know just HOW grateful I am to you all for this gift. When you have a condition like Huntington’s, being able to properly afford the things your medical team recommends to keep you well is vitally important. I am so thankful to you.
And with your donations to me, I FINALLY was able to afford some of the much needed maintenance on my 20 year old car - which has been badly neglected and in need of routine maintenance during my entire Pandemic nightmare. It is imperative that I get 2 new tires before another Central IL Winter comes again, and hopefully FUTURE donations may allow for this work to be done - especially since it seems I will be, again, living in my vehicle come January 2024.
Your donations also allowed me to get REAL medical care outside of the failed Aetna Medicaid in IL and ultimately, yet tragically, learn my oral cancer diagnosis. But at least I can plan accordingly. Knowledge is power - even when you are powerless to fix the broken poverty systems in Illinois.
Your kindness and generosity in this Season has truly been life-changing for me. And added <together> you gave me many crucially important things to help stabilize my life this year. But you also gave me something much more intangible yet critically important than all of that and that is: HOPE. HOPE that I could actually plan for a brighter future and a better tomorrow. And HOPE is the one thing that can help us get through the darkest of times. So even when this world threw its worst at me and then turned its back, it’s solely because of people with loving and compassionate hearts like you who reminded me that there in your generous kindness towards me was HOPE. And that HOPE is important because it makes the present circumstance less difficult to bear; because if I can believe that MAYBE tomorrow will, in fact, be better, I could better bear the hardship today. It’s the unrelenting LACK OF HOPE in a situation like mine that, too often, can lead to despair. And despair leads to a really dark place that no one in my circumstance dares to go. Conversely, optimism is the fuel that leads to achievement and nothing can be done without such optimism - and hope is the fountain irrigating that optimism. All of this you all gave to me and I am so incredibly grateful to you.
Your inspiring kindness towards me is a true miracle in this season of my life. As such, I will always remember you and honor you all. For you made the last stretch of bringing my Memoir to publication and the ability to even tell my story at all -even possible. You are the fuel and the love behind this momentous achievement and this is truly a full circle moment for me. And I think you should be celebrated for that because I think that makes you the REAL heroes of my story. And the world needs more heroes just like you. So I truly and deeply genuinely thank you with all that I am and all that I HOPE to be in my future. You and your kindness towards me will never be forgotten by me. Godspeed, friends. And God willing, maybe you will see me soar and become a still living testimony of the power of kind internet strangers….But as with the Book of Esther in The Bible: I've resigned myself to her fate of "If I perish, I perish." I can only do my very best - and hope that it is somehow enough to save my life. But if not, I hope to be remembered as someone who gave it her all when she literally had nothing to give but herself, her time and her compassion. Love to all ❤️
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