A true story of overcoming barrier after barrier!
Please meet Linda, our first placement of 2015 and the 55th person we’ve placed overall! Linda was a single mom and had raised 4 kids living in an apartment with the help of subsidized housing. This past fall her youngest child moved out and Housing regulations forced her to leave her 2 bedroom apartment because they would now only provide rental assistance for a one bedroom rental. After Linda moved out, she struggled for awhile because even though Housing would cover her rent for a one bedroom, she still had to find a place and come up with the security deposit which she could not afford.
For 2 months Linda lived in her car and parked near a park in the Buena Park area. This was very stressful for her as she witnessed people arguing, violent fights, and drug deals. But the last straw was when she witnessed a shooting over a stolen iphone. She knew she had to get out of this homeless situation somehow soon!
Linda searched and found an apartment that accepted Housing vouchers but still faced many barriers. The first barrier was that she could not afford the security deposit to move in. She called a local resource agency and was given the phone number to Off The Streets – HB. On January 14 she gave us a call. We explained our process to her which required her to email some items to us. She told us she didn’t have email which was Linda’s second barrier. We were amazed to learn that Linda overcame this barrier by going out the next day, January 15th, to a local resource center where she received help getting an email address, learned how to use it, and emailed OTS-HB all of the required items.
Linda was hoping to move into her place that same evening but she ran into one more barrier. The apartment complex had not received all of the paperwork from the Housing office which was going to delay her move in. So instead of just waiting for Housing to complete the process electronically, Linda went to the Housing office herself to get physical copies of the paperwork. And on the next day, January 16 (just 2 days after she called OTS-HB) she gave the papers to the management company. A few hours later we met Linda at her new place to pay her security deposit and we were able to see her receive the keys to her new place! We want to thank Linda for teaching us that hard work and persistence really does pay off! Congratulations Linda!