A few years ago, I found myself in quite the unfortunate situation. I was on the verge of being evicted from my apartment. After almost losing my newborn daughter to apnea, I was unable to go back to work because no daycare wanted the liability that came with an infant who was hooked to an apnea monitor day and night. While St. Andrew was gracious enough to pick up the tab for my day-to-day expenses including the rent for my apartment, that was not a sustainable solution and I was constantly afraid that the rug would be pulled from under me and I would be homeless, again. That was my biggest fear. You see, I had already experienced homelessness before when I left an abusive marriage and ended up in a battered women’s shelter.
It was through my caseworker at St. Andrew that I found out about Homestretch, a transitional housing program that guides homeless working families towards stable housing, which means that clients must be employed full time. You may wonder how a person can be employed full time and be homeless. I will tell you how. When you are making $9 an hour with two children under the age of three in day care, your biweekly paycheck is not even enough to cover a week of safe childcare in North Fulton. Ironically, I started working at a high-end day care where even with 50 % employee discount; I could still not afford to enroll my children there.
I moved into a Homestretch unit in July of 2007. Unlike the shelter, Homestretch treated my situation with the respect, dignity, and the self-worth that my daughters and I deserved. It was during one of the mandatory life skills classes that I found out about Habitat. A representative from Habitat had been invited to come and speak about habitat and the eligibility criteria for a home. The thought of being able to provide permanent housing for my young daughters had seemed like a distant dream but this information from Habitat showed me that owning a home could become a reality for me.
First order of business was to find a suitable job to meet the income eligibility. I registered with employment agencies with the goal of getting a job in my field of study, accounting. After several short-term placements, I was finally able to secure a fulltime position with a nonprofit organization in Atlanta. With a job sorted out, next on my agenda was cleaning my credit report. Health setbacks of my own had left me with almost $200,000 in medical debt. I worked with my budget advisor to manage my finances and figure out a way to pay off my medical debt. The goal was to clean up my credit report and raise my score which was at an all-time low of 383. This meant that I was held accountable and had to justify every purchase I made. My family mentor became a sounding board for the many times things seemed to be falling apart and I just wanted to give up.
Together, the budget advisor and family mentor supported me and were instrumental in helping me apply for hospital charity to pay off most my debt as well as apply for welfare to help with food and childcare expenses. They also helped me negotiate lower payments for the smaller bills with debt collection agencies. Having made some significant strides towards financial security, I applied for a habitat home for the first time in 2008. While I did not qualify for a home that year, the Habitat liaison with Homestretch gave me pointers and highlighted areas of improvement that would increase my chances for qualifying. Yes, I was disappointed, but I was also more determined to do what was needed so I would have a strong application the following year.
In the end, after almost four years at Homestretch, I was able to pay off my medical debt, save some money, find a better job, and build up my credit score all of which helped me qualify for a habitat home in 2009. I still vividly remember the call from my caseworker to tell me that I had been approved for a home. I cried, I laughed, I was lost for words. Finally, my daughters and I would be able to move into our own home without fear of being homeless again. I remember the anxiety of waiting for my build, wondering if something would happen before then and I would lose this once in a lifetime opportunity for homeownership.
Thankfully, nothing happened and in June of 2010, I hammered in that first nail with great joy and pride. 300 sweat equity hours and ten financial literacy classes later, I moved to my newly built habitat home in December of 2010. I didn’t sleep a wink that first night as I was still in a state of disbelief. My own home, complete with a garage and a washer and drier and other appliances. But the significance of that first day was captured in a question my then six-year-old asked ‘now can I learn my address?’ You see, her kindergarten class was learning about home addresses and since we were in transition, I had promised her that once we moved to our new home, I would teach her our address.
In the years since moving into our habitat home, I have achieved other milestones which have only been possible because I had the most important thing for a family, a safe and secure home. In 2015 I became a naturalized US citizen and in 2016, I graduated with my master’s in public administration.
Today, I am employed as Senior Accountant of a nonprofit that serves vulnerable individuals, and I perform my duties with the same zeal that I witnessed in the Habitat staff and volunteers. Recognizing that a helping hand to someone who has been beaten down by life can make all the difference. My daughters are 20 and 18 now and are doing great. One is a sophomore at the University of Alabama and the other is a senior at St. Pius Catholic High School. And that credit score is now to 819.
I am where I am today because Homestretch and habitat offered me something that homeless families often don’t get – a hand up to improve my situation while keeping my self-worth intact. My prayer is that those of you present here today will continue to support this wonderful organization so someone else in my situation can get a break, a chance to succeed. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you. Thank you for giving me stable housing and thank you for the gift of home ownership. I do not exaggerate when I say that every time I make a turn into my driveway I thank God for Habitat.
Thank you!
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