UPDATE: Hi everyone! Gosh, thank you so much for the resources. I sent them all over to her in a document that I had compiled. However, we’re thinking she just might be better off coming up to us in Sac. Does anyone know how we can get her to Sac safely? She can’t rent a car (no credit card) and can’t take public transportation due to her youngest son not being able to handle the sensory overload as he has Autism. Thank you again for helping me 🙏

Hello, everyone…..

If anyone can help guide me to resources or points of contact with this situation that would be lovely.

A relative of mine on my dad’s side (distant cousin) whom none of my family had contact with arrived in SoCal (Ventura County/Simi Valley) with her five kids after fleeing a domestic violence situation.

This relative has mostly had contact with my dad and the communication between her and the rest of the family has been sparse so I don’t know what her full story is or why she chose to come to CA. Our home is too small and we cannot house her and her entire at the moment. We live in the Central Valley and she doesn’t have a car so traveling would be difficult, especially since one of her kids has autism.

My dad is going to have surgery so I’ve taken over being point-of-contact and am compiling a list of resources such as: domestic violence/women’s shelters in Simi Valley/Ventura County, the 2-1-1 number, CalWorks/CalFresh etc…

This situation is very stressful on my dad. Even though he doesn’t really know his niece at all he doesn’t want her homeless but he really has no clue how to talk to her or what do. We’re also dealing with other family emergencies too.

Does anyone know what other resources are available that I could send over to my cousin to help her?

Tl;dr My dad’s niece whom none of us know or ever had any contact with is in SoCal with her five kids after fleeing a DV situation. How can we help her?