A mother living in a shelter with bipolar disorder and severe depression works at McDonald's while her daughter attends KIPP Academy Charlotte. The stress of homelessness has caused her child to develop alopecia, and the girl's wish is simply to grow her hair back.
When I first got in here, I swear I sat on the floor and cried for like an hour. I was diagnosed with bipolar, depression, severe depression. I said I had been in the shelter like a year or some months. It was difficult to sleep at night, are we gonna have a safe place to stay tomorrow? I think that's the hard part of it, just basically not knowing. I work at McDonald's, so I'll leave here at 6:00, and I'll get there at least by 7:40, 7:45. So that's a big commute for me. Her bus actually comes at 7:10. She got a good report card this year. She can get up, she can get herself dressed, and she can go to school. And, you know, she knows she got somewhere to come home to. She don't have to, like, sit outside on the weekend.
I'm 13, and I go to KIPP Academy Charlotte.
Alopecia is when you have a lot of stress. It was not just stress, it was pretty Weave in her hair. We came from a broken home. Just not really a good environment.
If you had a wish for anything in the whole world, what would you wish for?
I wish to grow my hair back.
I think people sometimes get a misunderstanding of homelessness when it comes to homeless mothers. I think they feel like, okay, well, they don't want to work, or they're lazy, or they're just a bum. And nobody knows. Everybody put a label on homelessness, but they don't know why that person is homeless. I just got a raise, which is wonderful. But without supportive housing, I still couldn't afford to stay here. Even with the job that I have now, I realize I don't need a job, I need a career. So hopefully I can go back to school so that way by the time she get at least in the 10th or the 11th grade, hopefully I can be done saving up the money and I'll be able to go out and, you know, make things happen. I think the difference between having a home and being homeless is that you, you got a key. I mean, you get a key and you can unlock your door. You can get up and cook and wash dishes and wash clothes, and that's the difference. Just having a key, coming in to have some peace and quiet. The peace and the quietness.
