My Apologies To Matt Hoff

By Cynthia Caron

Matthew Hoff, better known as Matt, I want to apologize to you on behalf of the state of California. California has the most expensive land, homes, movie stars, millionaires, Silicon Valley, and Corporate headquarters of major companies. Many of the best Universities, hospitals and health institutions in this country. So yes...an apology is due you and I've a feeling it won't be from the State of California, so please accept my apology to you and your family on behalf of myself and many of our Facebook followers. So while my writing here may come across as scrambled and covering a vast area of "topics" , know it is because I am fuming! Yes, my thoughts are scattered and I am angry…but know my thoughts will come around to the same conclusion and that is we, as a country, are not taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves and we have the worst wasteful spending and choices made in our government that will invariably be the downfall of our people. All people.

For those reading, are you also asking what on earth is going on in this country? For the record, it's not just California. It's a political year people. Wake up and know what is going on around you and know the issues you are about to vote come November. There is no excuse and certainly there is a problem when our system could give two flying hoots for those who are mentally disabled like Matt. The people in the state of California will waste their money on Botox and $3,000 handbags? Wouldn't it be a bit kind if they perhaps help support their local mental health clinics at the cost of one handbag per year? Maybe give up purchasing another pair of Testoni Moro shoes? Course we have a President trying to stress this point, yet his own family spends 17 days in Hawaii, comes home and his wife jets off with our tax paying money to ski in Aspen, Colorado. I can bet she didn't fly Jet Blue.

In the meantime we have Governors who demand that flags be flown in government offices at half-mast because a singer, Whitney Houston, has died. Just curious if the state recognized the passing when their own resident, Roberto (Robert) DeJesus Perez, died of a brain aneurism at the age of 18, a high school graduate who attended William Patterson University whose goal was to work for the United Nations died and became an organ donor? In doing so, he saved the lives of five people: a 63 year-old man received his heart, a 40 year-old man received his kidney and pancreas, a 51 year-old man received his lungs, a 46 year-old man received his liver and a 30 year-old man received his other kidney. Were the flags at half-mast for his funeral? After all Governors can determine when, how and why a flag is flown at half-mast and it is no longer for those who die in service to our country. In my eyes, Robert DeJesus Perez was a hero too…I hope his family at least received a condolence note.

What truly is going on in our country? Why is Matt being denied the right to proper medical care which includes his needed anti-psychotic medications? Why was he released into the world at 4:00 am from a police station? 4:00 am? Did they not learn anything from the death of Mitrice Richardson? Her parents must be dying inside, all over again.

Where on earth is our US tax dollars and money going? Who is making all these decisions on where US Grants should be given? We have Search And Rescue teams out drudging the mud, the weeds, and the woods to find someone's deceased loved one, voluntarily, AND paying to perform that task out of their own personal pocket book. While construction crews are volunteering their time to re-build homes so that wounded soldiers can have a place to live...out of their own pockets and time, following their regularly scheduled work days, of course. I've watched communities and very giving nonprofits be turned away from grants because a lot of the grants are being awarded in the most ridiculous means such as one federal grant program directed a million dollars from the public coffers to infuse zoos around the United States with snippets of poetry. Yes! Poetry. Yes, a million dollars! Apparently it was not fun or educational enough to go to the zoo and watch the animals and read about their culture, but so very important to have it converted to a poem? Not a million dollars to help fund the small animal shelters from city to city to better protect our dogs, cats and horses for example...but a better idea was to be sure poetry was visible at the zoo. Sorry. I do not get it.

Is there a problem? Yes. There sure is a problem. While nonprofits (and I'm not talking about the ones in which the CEOs make $200,000 a year from government grants which help to write their own salaries) I'm talking about all the little ones all over the country trying to help the homeless, help our Troops home from the service with injuries to build and remodel homes...trying to help find missing loved and vulnerable people, trying to educate those in underprivileged areas, trying to provide warm coats to homeless children here in the USA while having to beg for $5.00 donations of which is rarely received, except by a few wonderful caring citizens here and there, because most people would rather support the "big ones" that have high overhead, political connections and already receive million dollar grants. No, I do not get it. I do not get the "distribution system" not when, and shame on Portland, Oregon… where, by the way, have a very high homeless rate, more than probable the majority are adults who suffer the same as Matt Hoff, but somewhere the city determined that $900,000 was much more important to obtain stimulus funds on a new bike signage project. Albeit, the city already has similar bike signs, which it plans to leave up...however, the new signs—which include arrows, distance, and travel times to key destinations— have a slightly different design than their existing ones. Sigh. Imagine how many disabled high functioning adults could be provided rent assistance with that kind of money? Or how many elderly, who live on fixed incomes, could have had heat assistance? How many Matt Hoff's live in Portland? How many of their parents look at those bike signs and just want to cry?

Perhaps the government expects that we provide kudos to them in certain areas, such as helping the young woman fulfill her desire at only 28 years old, who became paraplegic due to a diving accident, to obtain permission by the government to allow herself to commit suicide, and the same government that allowed the feeding tube to be pulled from Terry Schiavo while she lay in bed and endured a starving death...of which it was proclaimed she would feel no pain. OF COURSE the government is going to grant such...it saves a tremendous amount of money from the government in supporting their expensive healthcare so in turn that money can be used to support the healthcare of illegal aliens. Makes sense...right? Allow two people to leave this earth that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide care...or should I say to "spread the wealth", in this case healthcare, to more people...say 4 illegal aliens. Do I have anything against aliens? No. Do I have anything against those here illegally? Yes. Somewhere in government, while they were removing the word "God" from everything, they forgot to review the definition of the word "illegal."

Heaven forbid (Am I allowed to say that?) one becomes noncontributory in this country...or has disabilities that makes them "less productive" than the politicians who think they have everything solved. You know, the ones who write all these "rules" and "laws" and apparently it never has dawned on them that their own children, or grandchildren could endure a tragic accident that could deem them disabled and walking the streets and thrown into jails without needed medications because they decided to steal something from the store in order to eat, or picked up by police for vagrancy as they needed to rest. All this while the government is working hard to provide free college educations to illegal immigrants while our own graduating seniors have to forego their dreams of a college education as it is completely unaffordable, even though their parents have paid all their taxes throughout their child's 12 years of education and contributed towards the schools in their cities.

While all this going on we have people pushing and shoving their way to the welfare lines that want to file and re-file for their "emergency funds" while wearing Nike Air Jordan's and texting on $600 cell phones and dragging their 3 time pregnant girlfriends, not wives...girlfriends...in tow...only to have a disabled homeless man be shooed away from the front door because he doesn't have a "permanent residence." I've seen this all personally with my own eyes as I waited in line with my autistic son who also has 5 seizure disorders, among other conditions, only to be told that "he graduated high school" so there are no programs to assist him with life living skills available. You need to wait until he is 21 years old. So for 4 years he went without special needs support, no services, and no assistance that both his father and I have paid into for years while I, his mother, funded, found and work voluntarily at my own nonprofit organization all while working a full time job and paying into our tax system. Yet, Mr.Texting-Boyfriend was handed an emergency voucher for food stamps and his application to have his home heating paid.

Somewhere this needs to stop. This country needs to step up and start holding accountable those who are using the system for their own personal gain. Or laziness. Start at the Whitehouse and work one's way across the entire USA from every corner. We need to take a moral and fiscal responsibility in this country to help those who cannot help themselves. I'm sure our forefathers never would have predicted this kind of system failures. I won't even begin to get into The National Institutes of Health which spent $55,000 to promote HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, even though no vaccine exists. Imagine that? There went the rental fee assistance, in southern Alabama, that could have housed 2, maybe 3, disabled high functioning young adults?

So here we have Matt Hoff, who by now I hope his name is in the household of every Californian and perhaps even in the USA, who by no choice of his own has suffered with extreme mental disorders since the age of 5 who turns 18 and is shuffled out of the system of care. Arrested for erratic behaviors and poor choices, not once, not twice but three times now only to be thrown into jail, again, and not given his needed anti-psychotic drugs. Does this make sense that the government would not want this young man to think like a "normal person" and not be way out in the land of paranoia and confusion? Are there legitimate reasons that the system in California will not allow him his medication? I would love to know that reason. Maybe I do. Maybe like the young paraplegic woman who received government blessings to commit legal suicide and like Terry Schiavo who was blessed with the government approval offered to her estranged spouse to yank her feeding tube, against her parents' wishes and clear compelling evidence by many that she would not want to die....maybe, just maybe, this is the reason California is not going to medicate Matt Hoff. Maybe they are hoping the next release at 4:00 am he will jump from the Golden Gate Bridge and they will have one less person to medicate, feed, house and find sufficient care....and that cost can help 2, maybe 3 pedophiles to receive a cute ranch home to live in instead. After all, there is only so much to give. Right?

PS. California, in case I've not conveyed my message clearly…perhaps Matt's mom can do better. Here she is: http://bcove.me/seq39ccr , video courtesy of Mark Eades with The Orange County Register.

Cynthia Caron
President/Founder
LostNMissing, Inc.
PH: 603.548.6548
www.lostnmissing.