Skip to main content

Advice for Roz...and the Rest of Us

Support Provided By

Wow! What wonderful — but also disturbing — responses we got from our story on Roz Lee. She’s the woman, wife and mother who lost her $70,000 a year job and is on the verge of getting kicked out of her apartment. People wrote to Roz sending their prayers, practical advice and empathy. But what’s disturbing is how many people are in the same terrible situation — unemployed, bankruptcy, buried in debt that they can’t crawl out of. Roz Lee, you are not alone.

Here‘s a summary of the advice that people offered (and a little bit of my own):

  1. Keep in CLOSE touch with your creditors. Putting your head in the sand is the worst thing you can do.
  2. Whenever possible avoid using those d%$# credit cards. The interest rates and fees can be killers.
  3. Find help if you sense trouble and don’t wait for the last minute. Some places go to: Consumer Credit Counseling atcccservices.com or 800-355-2227. It’s a reliable, long-standing organization that helps people with debt.
  4. There is also a new office opening in Riverside to help people manage debt and keep their homes. Check out: SHINE which stands for “Sustaining Home Ownership in the Inland Empire.” They are having a grand opening at 1605 Spruce Street in Riverside on Wed. Oct. 8th at 11am. The public is invited. You can also call them at 1-800-947-3752 or go to www.credit.org
  5. Finally, take a financial literacy course. Lean about savings, credit cards, budgeting, retirement, mortgages and more. Look up “financial literacy classes ” on the web. They are often offered by community groups or churches.
  6.  

Let’s hope that when all is said and done there are some serious controls on the predators and big wigs that prey on our ignorance. But in the meantime, let’s get ourselves better educated and financially disciplined.RELATED RESOURCES:

SHINE "Sustaining Home Ownership in the Inland Empire"

Grand opening on Wed. Oct. 8th, 11am

1605 Spruce Street

Riverside, CA 92507

Credit.org

Non-profit consumer counseling

1-877-947-3752

Support Provided By
Read More
Nurse Yvonne Yaory checks on a coronavirus patient who is connected to a ventilator. | Heidi de Marco/California Healthline

No More ICU Beds at the Main Public Hospital in the Nation’s Largest County as COVID Surges

As COVID patients have flooded into LAC+USC in recent weeks, they’ve put an immense strain on its ICU capacity and staff — especially since non-COVID patients, with gunshot wounds, drug overdoses, heart attacks and strokes, also need intensive care.
Vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Your No-Panic Guide to the COVID-19 Vaccine: Is It Safe, and When Can I Get It?

Here's what we know about the COVID-19 vaccines and how they are being distributed in L.A. County.
Nurse Michael Lowman gets the first dose of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from nurse practitioner Christie Aiello at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, CA, on Dec. 16, 2020. | Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty

Orange County Gets First Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine

A Providence St. Joseph Hospital nurse was the first person in Orange County today to be vaccinated for COVID-19, shortly followed by other health care workers.