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 NBC Los Angeles she tried to get into housing, but was denied. The baby, her mother and another child have been on the streets for months.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
NBC Los Angeles reached out to 211, which said in a statement that it has been overwhelmed with calls for services. It also said it needs more funding and resources to adequately assist the city's most vulnerable populations.
“This incident should be a wake-up call for our community that we need crisis and long-term housing options for our vulnerable populations, such as families with children, seniors, individuals with disabilities, and other at-risk populations.”
211 LA is funded by the county and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority also known as (LAHSA), which released a statement saying in part:
“LAHSA’s outreach teams will stay engaged with the family until the family receives long-term housing and is connected to the case management and housing assistance that will put them on a path to a permanent home.”
In a statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said it was urgent to get vulnerable residents off the streets.
“The absolutely tragic and devastating incident that unfolded last week is exactly why we need to get people off the street immediately, especially those with children... We will continue our urgent work to bring Angelenos inside to stop people from dying on our streets.”
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, the family is still without a home and grieving the death of the 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 the family up in a hotel but only until Wednesday. They don’t know what they are going to do when they have to check out. The heartbroken family said despite their life-changing loss, they'll move forward to honor their baby.
"Yayra would want us to keep going," Bethel said. "Yayra would want us to tell this story. Yayra would want us to help everyone else in this situation."
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.
"I want everyone who has a Yayra to please hear this story, and keep my family in your prayers," Bethel said.
