Four people share stories of homelessness, disability, and financial crisis. Speaker C lost income caring for her mother with Alzheimer's while battling depression. Speaker B lived in a hotel after losing her home. Good Friends offers gift cards and invites others to join their community support network.
I've been on my own since I was 12 years old. I pretty much was abused by my dad. He hated me. For what? I'm young. I don't know. I wear thick glasses. He threw bleach in my eyes. And one day I just woke up and couldn't see. The police, came to his apartment, they heard me scream. He put a sock in my mouth and he told me I better not scream or he would kill me.
I worked in programming and databases. I was on call and I never had any balance, so I wound up being run over. I never, I never found a balance because I had too many responsibilities. I didn't know how to handle it. But as soon as I quit, my mother went down with shoulder injuries, and then the next year she started going down the slippery slope of Alzheimer's, and I was all alone, and I had a couple nervous breakdowns.
And I was living in this house for 4 years, and she decided she wanted to sell her house. And when she decided to sell the house, I didn't have nowhere to go, so I decided to come to a hotel, stay at a hotel. All right, we in my room. This is my bed, and this is Natural's bed. It's a little junky and cluttered. This is our stuff and our suitcases and our little closet. Our refrigerator, we got a refrigerator. We have a little bit of food in there. And the microwave, can't put too much because it's so small. Awful, really awful. I mean, it's really tight.
If you're living month to month from a paycheck perspective and your lease is up and the landlord's going to increase your rent, Well, guess what? You're going to need to find a new place to live, but how are you going to have the extra money to make a security deposit? So what happens more often than I think people realize is that a lot of families end up going into motels.
I actually was homeless as I was pregnant with him. I pretty much, you know, started staying in hotel rooms so my kids could have a roof. I'm just at peace now because I'm not abused. I'm living okay. I might not have money and everything that I need, but as long as my kids see another day and not being out there in the cold walking with me sleeping in the car, or my daughter seeing another man hitting me— I'm trying not to cry. I've kind of been through a lot, you know.
When I say depression, I'm not talking about boo-hoo-hoo emotional depression. I'm talking about your body just being I was run over. I, you know, sometimes I could think and sometimes not. I couldn't pay the water bill. You know, you don't fully appreciate something until you lose it. And believe me, running water is very nice to have, and if you don't have it, you're going to find that out very, very quickly. Well, I think in Nick's situation, unfortunately, he hasn't had a regular income because of his disability. That's the type of situation where we want to help.
And imagine if you turned on any of your plumbing and nothing came out.
What would you do?
Well, literally, think about it.
What would you do?
And that's where Good Friends comes in.
So this is a gift card.
Okay.
We want we want you to get something for you, okay? We want you to get something for you.
Wow.
You get it. This is from all no nothing but God and all of the good women and good friends. You get something for you, okay? Please do that. Do not spend this on the kids.
Okay.
I'm loving this hat. I'm I'm gonna put I'm gonna put this on right now.
Okay now. When you've received some kindness, you want to be kind to others and pass it on.
They helped me with rent. I say God bless them. May they continue doing what they're doing.
There's so many needs in our community. We want you to be part of this sisterhood and movement to make life better for our neighbors.
I really don't have words for it because I'm so happy and I— I want to thank you guys because you guys really inspired me and made me feel like my family didn't. Y'all made me feel like I am a good mother and I am better than what I've been through. I think I can finally let go of my past, the abuse and everything, just to know that there actually is a God out here and people that actually do care.
