Giving a leg up to "Julia"

I'm looking for resources to help my friend:

She's losing her house due to a chronically ill son, 9. Daughter, 12, just fractured her eye socket rollerskating, and car broke down on the way to the ER. Now it's fixed - $600 later - but she's broke because she can't get to her cleaning jobs without a car. She has several renters interested in renting a room, but with a broken shower, she stuck until she can get the car out of the shop.

(see the detailed version of this saga, below)

If you would like to know how you can help...send me an email by clicking on the white envelope below.

I welcome any and all suggestions.

I love the internet because I believe that it is through these connections with others that we can build a better world - the pieces of the puzzle are out there. The voluntary collective can be a supremely powerful and creative organization.

My friend "Julia" is losing her home. Her son has a chronic illness and she has lost 3 jobs taking time to care for him. She wants to get a renter, but her plumbing is broken, and she doesn’t have the money to fix it. (We’ve offered to help, but it is a much more complex job than is wise for the amateur to attempt.) Can it get worse? YES. Last Friday her daughter was injured while roller skating at the local rink. The rink organized a game like musical chairs on roller skates except everyone rushes for orange safety cones. Bending over to reach for the cone she bumped heads with another friend and not only split open her forehead, but fractured 2 out of 3 of her occipital bones surrounding her eye.

Can it get worse? - Yes! While driving to the ER, her car shut off with no power, and she had to pull over. So she is sitting in her car with her bleeding daughter, and completely overwhelmed. Can it get worse? - Yes! Her AAA card expired April first. Friends from the rink picked them up and drove them to the hospital. And worse? - yes! She had the car towed to our home so my husband could look at it because she still owes money to her mechanic from the last breakdown. My husband called our mechanic who recently moved to Missouri, and he talked him through various options. None worked. We towed the car to another place where the mechanic who told her: It’s a $600-$2000 problem.

“Worser?” Yep. The ex-husband is giving her hell about her daughter’s care, which doctor, why does she need a specialist…on and on. She called me in tears saying the trauma of dealing with her abusive ex-husband is just too much. Anyway, it is requiring a team effort to give her the support she needs, all of us are busy, and I think that if more local people understood her predicament, we could make even more progress. I see the internet as a vehicle for that - but how is the question.