Their mom recently started a new relationship with a guy who is an alcoholic and stays in his mom’s one-bedroom government housing apartment. Their mom stays there with him and doesn’t have an actual place to live and the kids are currently with us. When they are with their mom, they are all in this one-bedroom apartment and sleep on air mattresses in the living room. When the boyfriend’s 5-year-old comes, the girls have to share an air mattress. She still has primary physical custody and gets child support through child support enforcement. She won’t make any agreement due to her needing the child support to look for a place to live. Whenever custody issues get brought back to court their mom gets angry and starts talking to the kids nonstop and guilt tripping them. One night she had left the kids at her ex’s house and she went and stayed with the new boyfriend and was late getting back so she could take the 14-year-old to his second day of high school. He contacted me asking for a ride and she yelled at him for doing so. We just want to know the best way to go about things while protecting the kids.

ANSWER

Will the Mom agree to share physical custody? Maybe she gets them every other Thursday to Sunday/Monday although I doubt the kids would want to do that.

If the Mom will not agree, then you can file a Complaint to Modify Custody and Intervene into the old case number. It sounds like you provide a healthy, secure place for them to stay and that is in the kids’ best interests.
You may want to ask the Court to assign a Best Interests Attorney for the children to help the Mom and the Court understand how the kids feel.