How to Overcome Homelessness

How to overcome homelessness

Linderdell Strawbridge

English Composition 1

May 31, 2015

In 2014, approximately 630,000 families across the U.S were homeless; my family was one of them. My husband was laid off in 2010 from his job. Being the sole income provider, his lay off caused our family situation to take a dramatic turn. As a domestic engineer, my responsibility was to take care of the home and our children. So, for many years I’ve been out of the workforce.

It was a struggle for me to find work because many people looked at the time since I’ve been employed. As a result of this my best option was to start doing childcare from my home. So, I started to provide childcare for families with small children. This income was very helpful but ultimately wasn’t enough to meet all our needs. Being frowned upon by many employees caused me to look at myself in a very negative way. Which caused me to become overwhelmed and ultimately depressed by all the events that were occurring in our life.

My family came to our rescue with some assistance, which was great as my husband search for employment. He searched for work consistently but there wasn’t any work for him in his field.  The landlord became very impatient as we worked through all the kinks and evicted us that same year. My neighbor who was also my friend allowed us to move into her house after she moved out. That was a great starting over point for us, because now we didn’t have the frustration of dealing with the old landlord and all the arguments and past issues.

However, starting over was great for my family, but now we had to face many more obstacles. My mother-in law took a fatal fall, which ended her life in July and my husband   became very ill, contracting a staph infection that nearly killed him. He had just started to actively seek work again in his career field.

With all the tragedy we faced this year was one of the worse years of over 20 years together. As days turns to months everything seemed to be falling into place. When yet another tragic situation accord. My husband was diagnosed with Stage 2 lymphedema. Which is a disease that affects the lymphatic system. With this condition he’s unable to hold a steady balance and is prone to getting cellulitis which ultimately leads to staph infections.

This diagnosis meant my husband would never be able to operate his legs without horrible pain and swelling almost every day. Also, he would be declared 100% disabled. Now, my family was forced to live off disability income which isn’t a fourth of the potential income he could earn. We were unable to make it any longer. So, we were forced to move out of our resident into a hotel. He became very depressed even to the point of giving up. After months of encouragement and supports groups. He began to accept the diagnosis and learn to live a quality life with his condition.

Moving into this hotel situation meant my family was now homeless. We lived in a hotel for more than 2 months and struggled each week to make the hotel fees. All 5 of our children and both parents were forced to stay in a one room. Being homeless and in such close quarters, brought our family closer. This also taught our children how to overcome any obstacle that life will bring their way. We were able to encourage one another through it all.

After this time period we finally found a temporary new place to call home. While, the kids were elated, I was still on edge because this was just temporary so finding permanent housing meant there was work to be done. With my husband being ill, all responsibilities were left in my hands. So, the house hunt began. This was very frustrating because while we were staying in the hotel. Many property were open but we continued to be denied because of previous rental history and credit issues.