http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/apr/21/211620/homeless-mother-15-says-she-needs-help-justice/news-breaking/Looking for Some Obama Money (Someone else needs to take responsibility!)
TAMPA - The din of room 168 at the Economy Inn on East Busch Boulevard occasionally drowned out conversation.
Twelve children ranging from teenagers to toddlers to infants spent the past week here, scrambling across the floor, bouncing on beds. With eyes filled with resignation on Wednesday morning, they were hungry and dirty and they wore the same clothes as the day before and the day before that.
Angel Adams, the mom, was asking for help, as the children rambled about the room. She was homeless and hopeless, she said. A relative paid for the motel room for a week, and after that, who knows. Her fiancé is in prison. Her 1-year-old is named John The Baptist Brown.
With measured indignation, Adams said somebody owes her.
By the end of the day, help had arrived.
Nick Cox, regional director of the Florida Department of Children and Families, paid Adams a visit and, standing outside the motel room with all 12 children present, offered a solution. He said there was room at A Kid's Place in Brandon, a cottage large enough to house a family of 12. Wary of the offer, Adams agreed.
The lifelong Tampa resident said she wants justice from the Hillsborough County sheriff's child protection team that took her kids away from her two years ago and from Hillsborough Kids Inc., which got her kids back six months ago.
"What do I do?" she said earlier in the day. "I have no answers. My family has been railroaded. Someone needs to pay.
"Nobody's helping me."
She remained distrustful of the system, she said. It was a system that despite all good intentions landed her in the motel, in this fix, in the first place.
Others would disagree, saying Adams is the cause of her own problems.
This morning, inside the dingy motel room, Adams handed out a list of her children's names and ages. Across the top: "Three fathers. One Mother. Fifteen Children."
Ten of the children, she said, were fathered by Garry Brown, currently serving a five-year prison term for dealing cocaine. A sampling of his kids' names: Garry Nesha, Garry Brown Jr., Garry Lethia, Garryiell and Garry Rick.
Cuban sandwiches and packaged noodles were donated during the motel stay. In the room, a microwave sat on top of a mini refrigerator. No stove. One sink, one toilet, one shower. Everyone walked barefoot over a grimy stained green carpet.
The smell of dirty diapers filled the room. Jerome, 11, gave Andrew, 6 months, a bottle. "This is not comfortable," Jerome said.
The baby coughed and spit up on Jerome's hand. He didn't flinch and patted the baby on the back
