emergency custody....!?!

[sweetsweet]

hello mamas!
i am writing because i am wondering if my ex is staying in a homeless transitional shelter with our 8 yr old daughter on his days do you think that i can file for temporary(i intend on full) custody of our daughter?

i would like to add that the only way i knew they are staying there is when i called and asked her where they were she got hesitant and put him on the phone and he told me. when i mentioned it would be best if we let her stay with me(in our own home in a wonderful community)while him and his 3rd wife got on thier feet he said he saw nothing wrong with bringing her there.....
ugthhhhh.

[NolaRiordan]

I would certainly think that would be grounds for temporarily revoking his visitation. But I think it's worth a call to a lawyer.

[blessedwithboys]

Maybe, maybe not. Homelessness is not always an automatic ground for terminating visitation/custody. If a woman and her children were forced by circumstance into a shelter, that woman would not automatically have her children taken away.

Does your ex have 50/50 timeshare or just EOW? How much time is your dd spending there? Are there other concerns about her safety in the shelter or is it just the stigma?

I myself spent a very brief period of time in a shelter with my ds1. It was a nice, clean, safe place. On the flip side, my ex lives in a private house with his replacement family. It is not nice, clean, or safe. If I could get his EOW overnights changed to daylight-only visits, I would, but there are lots of good reason why that would be best for my ds.

[sweetsweet]

the thing is....
we have joint custody with placement with him(school was better at the time but i have since relocated).
we also have her overnight equal amounts of the time with one of us getting an extra day or two a month.

long story short....
we married. divorced...i was young and my mentality was also.
within this year. he met a woman via the interwebs. he remarried. had another baby. divorced her. she lives across the country with thier baby who he doesnt see
less than a year later and he met another woman on the internet. took off(daughter stay with me)for 2 months. got married. moved her and her 3 children out here. was staying at his mothers. they left to go to homeless shelter. with 4 kids in tow until they find a home they like........
i never could imagine any of this happening but you never know.

i had a lawyer the last time and got what i wanted but i feel as if it was a waste of money i hardly have. i have no problems filling out the paperwork and filing for a motion. i dont know what im exactly going to file for but i firmly believe the right thing would be for her to be with me. i have taken her everyday to school for the past 2 years while he has been doing spreading his seeds all over the place. ive tucked her in every night and comforted her when she was upset he was gone. i have been a mother to the most wonderful princess in the world while he can just dissapear all of the time.

[sweetsweet]

my brother actually works for the organization they are staying with so the horror stories i hear from him are unsettling to say the least.
i feel like i should do something for her while they as grownups try to straighten there butts out......

[canadianhippie]

I dont see why you couldnt, fight for it, I would not by any means be comfortable or allowing for my child to be staying in a shelter when it doesnt have to be that way. Cant they just plan a day activities so she doesnt need to sleep anywhere but your home? The daddy cant feel right with letting his daughter sleep in a shelter, would he not prefer her safe in her own bed? Mama, dont allow your baby to be in that environment, custody should be awarded where there is a safe and appropriate environment for a child, dont you feel that is being broken? File the paperwork!!

[sweetsweet]

thanks canadianhippie...thats what we have all been saying.
i just wanted to hear some other opinions before i set off to file papers in a few hours.

i understand people and families fall upon hard times and need to stay at shelters....but why exspose your child to that environment if there is a home for her with her own cute bedroom, food, surroundings she is comfortable with(no doubt she is having fun at the shelter as any place thats new is fun for her!)

im not opposed to her staying with him when he has a house. i LOVE that she has a great relationship with him and is getting to know the new kids(it took a little while for me to be comfortable with the sudden 3 siblings but im okay now!)
i talked to him about this but honestly i would expect nothing less from him.
hes also talking to her about me...saying i want to take her away...and i wish i could demand he take a parenting class. any good parent knows thats the number one thing not to do...come on.

[Halfasianmomma]

No, your instinct is bang on. My gut feeling would be that a homeless shelter is no place for an 8 year old girl to sleep in. If her father wants to see her daily, then it can be arranged, but can he guarantee that she'll be fully protected at all times in such a place? Not likely.

I'd make sure to mention to the lawyer his poor track record with parenting. It's likely to play in your favour. Add to this the fact that you don't want to remove visitation from him altogether just modify it until he's living in better conditions...and I think you've got solid ground to justify a modification of custody.

[Avani]

In CA you wouldn't be able to. They have laws protecting the homeless and having custody of children is one of them. Being that he is in a shelter i think it would depend on the kind of shelter. If it is a roomful of cots with multiple others staying there then i would guess you could have overnights alone revoked until he could provide a room for her. However having visitation altogether revoked wouldn't happen. He still has a right to see his child. I would contact his caseworker at the shelter if he has one and get the information necessary on the situation.

[sweetsweet]

i dont want to stop them from seeing each other.
its the sleeping in a shelter and exposing her to that environment that gets me.
its def not a room full of cots...to tell you the truth he hasnt given me any information on the situation when i ask about it and that right there is a breach in our agreement.
joint custody is supposed to be an agreement in all major decisions in her life and i believe this is one of them.
he rarely communicates with whats going on.....i.e.when i ask where they are he doesnt give me a specific address or info on what the shelters like. i mean how do you impose that rule? we were both told not to speak about our situations or about eachother.(hes been breaking that rule.)

please tell me if im out of line.
i mean really...to tell you the truth i told him i will need the address of where they are to pick her up on my day and he still hasnt told me. i know the name of the building but they also have houses for families throughout the city.
that building is a nightmare...really...when you drive by there are addicts drinking outside, rape cases that happen on the grounds, people laying on the sidewalks and surrounding lawns....

whether or not she is affected by this she would never even have to see this crap if he was smart enough to bring her here...but he is selfish and trying to keep their new family together.
i really feel bad for their teenage daughter who actually knows whats going on.
i mean to move from one state to another and be in a homeless shelter in a matter of 3 weeks has got to be rough on them.
not one person from the family showed up at their wedding because nobody thought this was right.
you cant deny love but when you have kids you dont just up and move like that.
another thing is that the school year is approaching...

[Halfasianmomma]

No, I'm sorry, if he's refusing to give you an address, that (to me) is grounds for changing the visitation schedule. You NEED to know where your child is and him refusing to give you that information is just plain dangerous. Also, I wasn't going to mention this in my previous post but since you brought it up, there are often rapes/assaults in homeless shelters and I'd be VERY worried about an 8 year old child there.

I don't think it's wrong to ask that you have temp custody of your DD until your X is back on his feet and able to provide her with a SAFE home environment. He can still see her at all other times seeing as you are very willing to work things out with him.

Have you filed for temp custody today?

[sweetsweet]

im going in about an hour and am going to file for temp and set up a date to address me getting placement as his decisions need to be evaluated.
i mean really...i think he thinks of himself and his wife first...which is sad and potentially dangerous!

[Halfasianmomma]

Good. Let us know how it went! Good luck!

[One_Girl]

Where I live being in a homeless shelter isn't considered not having a shelter so people don't get their kids taken for that, which I think it good because it is disruptive enough to lose your home but being ripped away from a loving family on top of it would be heart breaking for many children. If he has been spotty with coming to have custody then I think you should start documenting and go back to court based on that.

[VocalMinority]

Originally Posted by blessedwithboys

If a woman and her children were forced by circumstance into a shelter, that woman would not automatically have her children taken away.

I think this is a valid point.

[Theoretica]

I do think if the situation were reversed there wouldn't be a discussion of whether or not a mother could/should have visitation/custody/parenting time of her children while in a homeless shelter.

If she's allowed to stay with him overnight by the shelter that means it's a family shelter anyways. I don't necessarily think that's a 'bad environment'.

Also he could be withholding address information because it's against the rules to share it, or it could be embarrassment or fear on his part.

My suggestion is to reframe this and ask yourself how you would want to be treated if it were you on his end of things, and he on yours.

[luv-my-boys]

personally I do think that you should file for temp. custody of her. I would think that any parent would want the safest/healthiest place for their child. Yes, people do fall on hard times but if the other parent is able to provide a better environment temporarily for the child than I think the child should be with them. No, it does not mean that their parent/vistation should be completely taken away from the *homeless* parent but I do think that stipulations could be made so that the parent is still involved in the child's life without having the expose them to a shelter.

On the whole *family shelter* thing. I worked as a nurse in a family shelter and let me tell you not all family shelters are *family* in any way other than they allow children as well. Shelters are hard places to be, physicallly,mentally and emotionally. Bad things happen at shelters and yes bad things happen out in the real world as well but I know I wouldnt feel comfortable bringing my child into a shelter unnecessarily if they had a safe place to be other than there. The fact that the mom has no idea where the child is staying is in breech of their custody agreement.