Today we congratulate Erica and her 3 kids for ending their homeless situation and getting into a home of their own. When she called and qualified for our program, we built a budget with her and because her rental fit this budget we were happy to pay this family’s security deposit so they could move in. We will also be providing them much needed furniture very soon. Read Erica’s story below:
Dear OTS,
I have been homeless now since about January of this year. Me and my family had an apartment and we were already going through financial issues being that I wasn’t getting a lot of hours at work. The financial issues caused a lot of fighting and arguing between me and my ex-boyfriend. The fights became physical which made me decide to start making plans to leave the situation. Then in a sudden freak accident my ex boyfriend got hit by a forklift at work and until this day is injured and out of work because of it. He did receive his workman’s compensation but we had to wait three months for him to receive any money and in turn ended up losing our place. I was homeless for about 3 weeks then found somebody that was willing to rent me a room so I can get back on my feet. Not realizing what I was getting myself into at the time I went along with it. A couple weeks after I moved in I started to notice the people I was living with had a lot of traffic in and out and eventually found out that these people were on drugs. There was a lot of late-night parties and a lot of strangers in and out of the house. Although me and my ex-boyfriend were living separately at the time we were still sharing custody of my son so unfortunately he was still coming around one night we got into a huge fight. The police were called and after describing to the police officer what happened and the situation that I was living in he gave me a card and told me to call the number on it. It was a number to a shelter called alternatives to domestic violence. After calling this place about 3 or 4 days straight she ended up letting me come with my kids. It’s a 30 to 45 program. I stayed 45 days and during that time my section 8 housing voucher application came in the mail. Something that I’ve been praying for-for years now. God is always right on time. Because this couldn’t have all happened at the same time without his grace and mercy. Since then I ended my domestic violence program and did get help from the county with hotel vouchers and in the meantime have been looking for a place to stay that accept Section 8 vouchers I finally found one within the price range that I’m supposed to look for my only problem is I don’t have a deposit because of the fact that I am homeless money goes like water when you’re paying for hotel rooms in sleeping in your car or paying people to let you sleep over their house it’s very expensive to say the least. This is the reason I need your help. Also when I went to The Domestic Violence Shelter I left behind everything I own. So I literally have no furniture nor do I have household items. Your help is very much needed for my family and I to move forward with our lives and start anew. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
God Bless, Erica
Erica, from all of us at OTS, congratulations on your new home!
This family brings our placements this year to 144 and our grand total since we started in 2014 up to 454.
Read about our Campaign to House 1000 Homeless By 2020