My father is a 58-year-old concrete layer, navy veteran, single father, and recovering drug addict. Because of his service, he receives free health care, albeit only through the VA, the nearest of which is about a 6 hour drive from his home. Because he is indigent, he cannot take off of work to drive that far. That's fine: because of his criminal record, he isn't allowed to have a license anyway. Even if he did, because of my little brother, he'd need to get a babysitter or take him out of school, neither of which can he do. For years as odd symptoms began cropping up, he didn't go to the doctor because he needed to go to work to scrape together the money to pay for bills, his RV's rent, food, stuff for my brother, etc. When he didn't go to the bathroom for 10 days, he almost died. He went to the emergency room.

The hospital performed emergency surgery and found stage IV colon cancer that had spread to his liver. When they found out he was uninsured AND had a criminal record, they treated him like dirt. They discharged him without a prognosis, without an oncologist to call, without any records, with a fever, at 10pm at night. When we finally got him to Houston to go the VA, they were wonderful. Except, to get his treatment started, they needed his records. He was never given them by the first hospital, and that hospital's "system" couldn't communicate with the VA's "system". We had to physically drive back 6 hours to pick them up (and pay for them, of course), and bring them back.

Now, in order to get treatment from the VA, he has to travel between Corpus Christi and Houston every few weeks for chemo. When first getting the treatment started, he had to stay up there and take my little brother out of school for weeks. They called CPS on him because my little brother was truant - what exactly was the other option? There was nobody helping my father, weak, wasting away, colostomy bag in constant need of change, no HOME, no money, no transportation. My father was staying with my sister, then with some equally poor, equally addicted friends, living on their goodwill for the most part. Also, because his initial surgery wasn't done in a VA facility, its on him to pay the thousands of dollars for that. For those keeping score this means he has to do hard labor while on chemotherapy to make barely enough to live, in order to be able to afford a bus ticket to Houston every few weeks (he doesn't get PTO days, so he's not getting paid for this), and find someone or somewhere to leave my brother while this goes on so he can stay enrolled in school, in order to get his "free" treatment for his cancer.

My father is the model of someone who needs, deserves, and has earned (even by conservative standards) the right to affordable health care and assistance in raising my 13 year old brother. Texas refused to expand medicaid, so the ACA's contingency plan for the poor was shut for him. The VA's insular program, while working wonderfully well *as a facility*, doesn't provide him with care in his actual home, causing massive hardship for him that almost had my brother taken from him and almost causing his death by not being able to get regular checkups. There are food stamp and disability programs available to ease the hardships needed for him, but because of Texas' draconian laws, people with a drug record are only eligible after extensive (and stupid, I might add) hurdles and red tape. Our "health" system failed my family; our social "welfare" programs have provided anything BUT welfare for my family, and our "justice" system has locked my father out of getting the pathetic excuses for aid that his state does offer.

My dad needs help with:
- Money for transportation to/from Corpus/Houston
- Money for food, rent, and other day-to-day expenses while he can't work
- Fees for various social work programs trying to get him signed up for housing.
- Stuff my 13-year-old brother Tory needs for school, like clothes, backpack