Today we congratulate Melody, Joshua and their 4 kids today for ending their homeless situation. We were able to help them obtain housing by paying their security deposit and we will soon be providing this family with much needed furniture and household goods. Read their story below.

Hello, this is melody and joshua’s story of how we became homeless. This all started when we lived in northern california for about 5 years ,Josh had a steady job which made it possible for me to stay at home and raise our 4 children . Well after 4 years into his work without a pay raise things got tough so Josh decided to look for new work while still at his current job, when they found that out they let him go . That’s when it got really hard for our family. We then decided to move back to our hometown in tustin even though we had nowhere to go . So me and Josh talked about me and the kids going to a transitional living home called the orange county rescue mission. He stayed with his mom so that he could find work and know his family was safe. Me and our 4 kids stayed 18 months there, when we left we found housing in buena park , but the job josh was at for 2 years wasn’t making ends meet ,so I started to work . even though I was slowly loosing blood and not even realizing the fact I was getting sick. Josh decided he needed a better career so he went to truck driving school and received his class A license and is now working for a good company . I was out of work for a while due to multiple blood transfusions ,they finally figured out that it was an ulcer so they did what they had to do to fix it.The doctors have already said I am well to go back to work so that’s exactly what I did. In the meanwhile we had to split our family apart for a while ,I was at my moms (in which she would kick me out at least 3 times a week due to her mental illness) . I then would sleep in Joshua’s car ,until his mom found out and said I could stay so I could finish getting well, but our family needs to be out. This situation has not only put a hardship on our marriage ,but our kids are also old enough to see that things are not right .It hurt my heart this last Christmas when all 4 of them said we don’t want gifts mommy we just want a home. Unfortunately they did not get either. We have had a hard time saving money due to the fact that sometimes we would stay in motels to give the Grand parents a break as well as pay for warm clothes and on occasion medicine ex. Four children are a lot to handle when you have already raised your own. Ms. Renata does a lot for our kids. and we appreciate it , but we cannot overstay our welcome. We are two adults with 4 kids who have made it in the past and yet had our down time but we are ready to start new and get back to raising our children together. Homelessness is not something that can ever happen to us again we are to motivated ,and me and josh have to stay loving and strong for our kids and us.
– sincerely, Melody

This family brings our placements this year to 9 and our grand total since we started in 2014 up to 519.