A homeless mother in Westchester said she tried get help from county homeless service agencies before her 1-year-old daughter died at a bus stop near Los Angeles International Airport.
Amantha van Cleave told NBC4 she tried to get into housing, but was denied. The baby, her mother and another child have been on the streets for months.
It remains unclear how the child died.
The investigation is ongoing but Yayra Rutherford’s family said she may have died because she was cold. They said she may still be alive today if just one of LA’s homeless services had helped them with a place to stay.
Van Cleave described Yayra as a smiling, teething 1-year-old who loved makeup and her mom.
“She’d stand up in the bed, she’d tap me and she’d go ‘Hi’ every morning at 4 a.m. I don’t have anybody to wake me up now,” Van Cleave said.
Van Cleave said their family has been in LA for eight months and mostly lived out of her car. But the last few weeks, they slept at LAX and spent the day at a bus stop nearby, where Yayra died Friday.
“She was teething the night before and then she just went to sleep and didn’t wake back up,” the mother said.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner is still working to determine her official cause of death, but while they investigate, her godmother, who is also homeless, is furious.
“It does not matter what they tell you, they will not help you,” Stella Bethel, Yayra’s Godmother said.
Bethel said in recent months their family reached out to several LA County homeless service agencies but no one helped.
“If you do not have an alcohol issue, if you do not have a drug problem or if you are not a victim of any type of any type of domestic violence… you’re not getting any help,” Bethel said. “We’re tired. We’re tired of reaching out for help, we’re tired of these people showing up looking down on us in condescending ways, like yo, there are people out here that really need help and these people are not listening.”
Van Cleave said she called 211 last week, a hotline that works to connect people in LA County with emergency shelters. This month, LA’s city controller posted about their audit that showed last winter, 211 was overwhelmed with more than 160,000 calls for shelter, and they only answered half.
NBCLA reached out to 211, but did not hear back as of Wednesday morning.
Van Cleave said she called three days before her child died.
“They said that they didn’t have any openings and the holiday is coming, ‘Oh you can try after that,’” she said.
Now, after the holiday, this family is still without a home and now grieving after the death of this 1-year-old they loved so much.
“That little bitty baby, that 1-year-old baby, was what held us together. Now what are we supposed to do? Starve? Sleep on the streets? What are we supposed to do?” Bethel said.
A separate homeless service agency, PATH, put them up in a hotel until Wednesday. But after that, they have to check out and they don’t know what they are going to do.
They said they want to focus on finding money to cremate Yayra, but sadly they also have to spend time still trying to find a home.
Source: NBC Los Angeles