A Homeless Woman's Story

Here is a response to my article "The Homeless Are People Too." I was so moved by it, that I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
***
Dear Amy:

I found your article on the homeless interesting. Thank you for publishing it.

I started to comment on your article, but my comment is rather extensive, nearly the length of your article itself. I think it's better sent to you and you can decide what should be done with it. To my mind, it's actually more of a follow up and a real-life example than a comment.

I'm a college grad who made some very questionable decisions around the time I turned 30. I married then. He is now deceased. I met someone through the auspices of CM and married him 2 years ago, but I digress.

Having met and married my husband, alive at the time, we eventually had 2 children. Life until the birth of the first child was turbulent, as my husband then failed to deal with depression in his life. He began to show signs of paranoid schizophrenia which he was unwilling to have diagnosed. We had our 2nd child and the schizophrenia became more noticeable and made some strong and damaging impacts on his militarycareer. In 1999, we were assigned to an American military post in Germany. He began to show signs of active paranoia very shortly after we arrived, but still sought not treatment for fear of the great stigma shown to such by the military and its negative impacts on the career. He began drinking heavily by late February of 1999. He started staying out nights on drinking binges. One night in June he was actually at home, although drunk as could be and he assaulted me. He was taken to jail, an act which enforced a temporary separation.

He chose not to reunite at the end of the required 60 day separation period and I was sent packing to the States. I had teaching licensure, but by the time I was ready to leave, I was one broken woman: mentally, emotionally, spiritually. My husband's activity had become more aggressive to the point where he was finally sent to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany for assessment. The initial assessment: psychosis, with directive to be sent for treatment to Walter Reed military hospital, where he was finally sent and finally received a specific diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia in February of 2000.

I, meanwhile, found myself with some skills but no place to stay and two very young children to support. Family was unable to open its arms at the time, due to health problems with my parents and a lack of space for other siblings, and one sibling who simply didn't offer her home although she had room. I had friends in Georgia, but one had a troubled marriage and the other just had no room in her tight, cramped home. Thus, arrangements were made to have me temporarily stay at a homeless shelter. This shelter, called Damascus Way, in Columbus, GA, was both shelter for homeless women and recovery center for addicted women. Women who arrived at this shelter came from circumstances even more dire than mine. One woman who arrived just a day or two before me had been thrown out of the home, along with her two small sons, by her boyfriend of the time. They started walking the streets and eventually made their way to Damascus Way that night. Another family was there after the husband assaulted the wife in a drug or alcohol-fueled rage and was jailed for several months. The circumstances varied. We all felt like we were down to our last hope, however, I think.

When I arrived at Damascus Way, I was so torn mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I stayed there until I was strong enough to start attending job interviews. In the meanwhile, it was church attendance, classes on recovery, visits with a therapist who donated time. While I wasn't an addict, my own problems had me identifying strongly with the women who made choices that led them to addiction. I did not see myself as different from these women. Thus it was that I attended classes geared for them as well. I also landed a job while there, in a school that was a few miles from the shelter. My principal was supportive of my circumstances and was confident of my skills. To this day, I can't begin to express my gratitude for her willingness to hire me despite my circumstances. That is quite a risk but it paid off for us both.

My husband eventually joined me at the shelter and we decided to try reconciliation. We stayed at someone's home looking for our own place to live while they were on an extended vacation. During that time, my husband decided to leave his family. On a hot August evening he chose to drive off, leaving behind his 2 daughters. My girls and I stayed in our temporary living arrangement until the owners arrived. In the meanwhile, I did my best to keep up the demands of the home. With a new job and thinking "I can do this", it was dizzying and in retrospect I wish I'd asked for help. I wanted to prove I could "do this". In the end, faced with no where else to turn and no place to go despite 2 solid months of home-searching for a home to buy or rent, and friends still unable to house me even temporarily until I found a place, I returned to the shelter. There, I kept up with assigned chores, went to work, my children were both in a child-care center with one attending the pre-school there, and I attended to finding a home for me and my children with much vigor. By this time, I had more hope, a bit more confidence, and a real estate agent that was on my side. I finally settled for a particular home in Georgia, which I bought with some help. I moved out of the homeless shelter for good in January of 2001. I continued to teach in the school that had hired me. In 2003, I met an old friend. That meeting eventually drew me to the Church, into which I was received at Easter Vigil 2004. I joined CM in the fall of 2004, met my husband in the spring of 2005 and we were married just over a year later. By the grace of God and the willingness of certain individuals to have hope in me and support me, I was able to transcend beyond the homeless circumstances and return to gainful employment, plus obtain a place to live for me and my children. I met and married a wonderful man from CM and moved to his state of residence. Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

I am blessed that the director of the shelter was willing to open her arms and give me and mine a room. I'm blessed for all the help I received there. I'm totally convinced that without this grace from God I'd have been struggling for a long time. I'm blessed that there were people who were willing to take a chance on me, have hope in me when hope seemed all but absent.

I don't know how typical my case is. I am just one face of the many homeless faces, and I am one person, along with my daughters. Together, we make 3 people who faced homelessness and made it to a more stable place. It is possible, but it is not possible without those who think the homeless are not people, and who judge them for the choices that land them there. As the saying goes, "There but for the grace of God go I." It's a statement in which I now believe even more strongly than I ever did.

Whether in a shelter or on the street, the homeless have faces. They have hearts and dreams. They have hurting lives. Many seek restoration for their lives. They seek and need hope. They want another opportunity to rise above the circumstances. Some desperately need to be nursed back to a place of stronger faith, and some desperately need loving hearts and open arms to simply believe in them. The faces and circumstances of the homeless are as varied as can be. Each is an opportunity for the better, an awaiting of God's outpoured grace in their lives. Each awaits Scripture which proclaims, "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!"

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I realize it was lengthy. It just seemed too long for a comment. Maybe it needs to be with the original article as an addendum or follow-up article. Please do with it as the Spirit leads you.

Yours,

Heidi