Woman wounded in South L.A. gang crossfire on verge of losing home

South L.A. community leaders met Thursday afternoon to demand that the state approve disability assistance for a single mother wounded in a drive-by shooting in July in the Athens area.

Rashaun Williams, 29, of Lancaster -- an innocent bystander caught in gang crossfire on Imperial Highway -- was a home health aide and crossing guard but has been unable to work since she was shot in both legs. Williams has been surviving on $328 in monthly CalWorks welfare payments but said she can no longer afford the two-bedroom apartment she shares with her 6-year-old daughter, Ky'mariy Redd.

Williams said Ky'mariy’s father had been helping with the bills until he was hospitalized last month with a heart attack. She said her only option now is to move in with relatives, probably her mother, who lives in a section of Torrance where Williams said gang violence has surged recently.

A doctor recently told her she may need additional surgeries on her right leg. She is on Medi-Cal and has been on a waiting list for rehabilitation since the shooting.

Community activists Earl Ofari Hutchinson and Eddie Jones appeared Thursday at the Lucy Florence Cultural Center in South Los Angeles to demand that state officials approve Williams' application for Medi-Cal disability assistance.

“We want to help Rashaun Williams either stay in her place or find another place,” said Jones, president of the Los Angeles Civil Rights Assn.

He said they have taken up a collection to assist Williams with her rent to avoid eviction.

“We are also going to investigate the county, Medi-Cal and why she was denied,” Jones said. “They should be assisting her — she deserves emergency assistance. She shouldn’t be homeless.”

Those who wish to help may contact Jones at (818) 268-9002.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Comments

[kuruc]

i demand that the usa government give this woman the SAME right and privileges that obama's aunt (an illegal alien) got.

[paul]

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government… it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards of their future Security.

THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Declaration of Independence
NEVER EVER VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO IS IN A GOVERNMENT OFFICE OR HAS HELD A GOVERNMENT OFFICE, TIME FOR REAL CHANGE VOTE THE WHORES OUT

[dee]

Where are all these victim of crime agencies ?

[Joseph W. Walden Jr.]

kurac I'm guessing your just a wack-job political extremist, this story has nothing to do immigration or the relatives of elected President Obama so try to focus.
This story is about this woman's suffer as a victem of crime and the Medi-Cal service selection methods, that being her services being denied or neglected by said agencies.