Mom of 15 told to start cooperating

From the start, Angel Adams has blamed the system.

The government hasn't given her enough food or money to deal with her 15 children, she says. Last week, she and 12 of those children - ranging from 11 years to 6 months - were living in a motel room with little food and dirty clothes.

So the government helped even more.

The Department of Children & Families has arranged for temporary housing, rent-free, in a six-bedroom home. Hillsborough Kids Inc. paid the more than $6,000 she owes to the Tampa Housing Authority, and the authority cut short a five-year ban on Adams so she can move in to a new home. The kids have new clothes and shoes.

On Monday, Adams was told to quit complaining and start helping herself.

"The mother has been less than gracious in accepting any of the help that (Hillsborough Kids) has been providing," Nick Cox, regional director for DCF, said Monday. "In fact, I think there has been a certain level of anger that she has exhibited to them, not to mention the sheriff's office."

Cox's comments came at a status hearing for the family before Hillsborough Circuit Judge Tracy Sheehan, the 28th hearing in less than two years. Cox, a former prosecutor, said the government is involved in the case only because the children need more help than their mother has given them.

"We're not here to start giving her handouts," Cox said. "We're not here to provide for her. We're not here to provide her a house that she wants or anything like that. We're here to help and support and take care of the children."

Adams has come under heavy public criticism for both her circumstances and her attitude. She doesn't have a job and her children were fathered by three men; her children were taken from her two years ago after neglect accusations, but the family was reunited six months ago.

Cox said Adams' children seem well-adjusted. "However, she hasn't been able to provide for them until the point last week when we found them in a motel room, and I think the mom needs to realize she needs to stop complaining about people trying to help her and start cooperating."

The judge reiterated that theme: Sheehan sternly told Adams that the case would never have come to court if she had acted more responsibly.

"This case came into our care because they were living in a home without power, with a situation where the kids were not getting their medicines and where the kids were not being fed," Sheehan said.

"All we have ever asked of Ms. Adams to get a roof over her head so that we could allow her to go on and raise her children. And we know, ma'am, you don't want us in your lives; I understand. We have not, though, been able to check out because we know you are one step away from living on the street."

If child welfare workers and the judge were sending a message, it did not seem to be received.

Interviewed after the hearing, Adams said the government has continuously uprooted her children and has been "heckling and harassing her."

As for Cox's comments that she should be grateful, she said she is appreciative of the help in recent days but that the government should have done more before that.

"Everything he says I think is a bunch of bull."