Blog by the Bay » Other

Domestic Violence Prevention Month

Ginger Wilcox — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:11:27 +0000

As you know, I often like to talk about the causes I am involved with outside the real estate business. This isn’t about real estate, but it is about something important impacting families in our community…

On Saturday, I will get to speak to 200 women in the Junior League of San Francisco about domestic violence at a training event. Domestic violence is an issue I have always been passionate about. Shortly after college, I volunteered at a shelter for battered women in Mesa, Arizona. Working in the shelter directly with women and children impacted by the horror of domestic violence forever changed my life and viewpoint.

In the years since then, I have worked with a variety of different community programs that support victims of domestic abuse. What I never expected was to see it first hand with a dear friend. Imagine waking up one morning to find a text message from a close friend saying she was in the hospital because her husband had beat her up. Severely.

I am not going to go into details here, but the thought of it makes me shake with anger. Many times people think domestic violence is an issue that impacts poor people. Immigrants. It doesn’t impact the educated, the rich, the successful people.

Well, anyone who thinks that is wrong. Domestic violence is occurring in Marin County. It is occurring in San Francisco. It is happening in Pac Heights, Kentfield and Ross. Highly educated women are being abused.

This is a short version of two stories I will get to speak about on Saturday:

Amanda Norris, 21 Killed October 27, 2005

Her ex-boyfriend harassed and threatened her for three years, once even carrying her down the street in an attempted kidnapping until someone sprayed mace on him. Her ex-boyfriend was on probation stemming from his multiple acts of domestic violence against Amanda when he murdered her and shoved her body in the trunk of his car.

Amanda Branson, 35 Killed May 11, 2002
Amanda was a mother who was stabbed to death the night before Mother’s Day in front of her two children. Police found a bouquet of red roses and a Mother’s Day Card that her husband wrote promising everlasting love. Her husband was convicted of murder.

(*name and some details changed to protect identities)

I hope these stories make you sick. They should. Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten. In fact, at least one in every three women in America has been beaten, coerced or abused during her lifetime and over one-third of the murders in America take place between family members. Tragically. the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates that up to 90 percent of battered women never report their abuse.

Women you may know are being abused. They may not look like victims of domestic violence, but it is happening. If you or anyone you know need assistance, there are many local resources.

For more information:

In Marin, contact Marin Abused Women’s Services- http://www.maws.org/
In San Francisco, contact La Casa de las Madres- http://www.lacasadelasmadres.org/

Blog Post #200, in memory of Sheila Lublin

Ginger Wilcox — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:25:29 +0000

Image courtesy of AgentGenius

This is my 200th post on Blog by the Bay. I had a very different post planned, but this one was much more important. My friend, fellow real estate agent and blogger Bill Lublin tragically lost his wife Sheila yesterday. I was very fortunate to have met Sheila just a few weeks ago in San Francisco. As moms, we had an instant connection and spent a long time chatting and getting to know each other. She was an amazing lady and an inspiration.

I met Bill through the real estate community, we are both writers for AgentGenius.com and he has become my friend. I am terribly saddened by the Lublin family’s tragic loss. My heart goes out to Bill and the Lublin family.

On a positive note, I am honored to be part of a community that is amazingly supportive of each other. I have seen the outpouring of love for Bill today. Many of us are contributing money to help food deliveries for Bill and his son from local Philadelphia area restaurants/deli’s. Please join us in making a contribution by clicking here to contribute. Excess donations will be sent to the American Cancer Society.

Services for Sheila will be held on Friday August 8, at 10:00am ET at:
Goldstein’s Rosenberg Rafael Sacks Funeral Homes
310 Second Street Pike
South Hampton, PA 18966

I looked up your birthday on the world wide web

Ginger Wilcox — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:19:29 +0000

You might be surprised how easy it is to find out:

your home addresses- for the past twenty years
names and ages of spouses, siblings, parents and more
much, much more

Today I stumbled across two search engines, Zabasearch.com and Peoplefinders.com. I am sure there are many others. One quick search on peoplefinders and I saw my name, age (my age is right in one spot, OLDER in another- now that is just wrong!), and a listing of my possibly relatives + their ages. Pay a small fee and you can get home phone numbers, home addresses, and even my exact birthdate (which thankfully might be wrong in at least one spot!)

How did so much of my so called private information get out “there”? This information was always available, but it took a lot of time searching at county records offices, and of course you had to know which county to search in. This information is now compiled on the grand old world wide web. It pulls from public records for property ownership, births, deaths, marriage, divorces and criminal records. It also must pull from other records such as utilities, because it seems to have records of addresses for past rentals I have had as well.

What really scares me is that places like banks often use your mother’s maiden name as a security question. Guess what- now EASY to find. In my business, I am in the public eye. I want people to find me, my website, blog and my office. BUT, I don’t want them to find my house, or the names of my children. And for those of you who don’t put yourself out in the public eye- think about your privacy. The people looking for the names of our children are probably not the people we want to hear from.

There is an option to “opt out” on both of the sites listed above, but it seems like you have to provide a huge amount of information. To opt out, they ask for: any aliases and A.K.A.’s , complete current address, complete former addresses going back 20 years, full birth date, and more. I am not sure I want to provide this company MORE information than they might already have. Maybe I am being paranoid. The reality is that I can’t opt out of every online data broker. If someone wants the information, they will get it from someone.

Visit Privacyrights.org for more information on privacy rights and issues. They also provide a list of all online data brokers you can opt out of, and a long list of those that you cannot.