Lisa
Lisa started by saying that her story began before she was born. Poverty, she believes, runs in her family, and is an inherited trait for many. She spent the first part of her childhood with her grandmother, as her parents struggled with drugs and alcoholism. Because she saw what substance abuse can do to people, she said she made a conscious choice to steer clear of its influence.
Her grandmother taught her and her siblings to value education and resourcefulness, and Lisa credits that teaching with helping her understand how to survive. Her grandmother said, “You don’t have to have everything as long as you have what you need.” Lisa manages the little money she has, “to a T,” and has always impressed case workers, shelter staff and others with her ability to make due.
When Lisa was 16, her grandmother died, thus initiating a cycle of foster care, shelters, and homelessness. Getting pregnant caused Lisa to have to leave the job she had, and move from a single women’s shelter to a family shelter, where another resident stole from her. The story she tells is one of moving from shelter to shelter, from case worker to case worker, and of constantly navigating a series of complex rules that, in her opinion, serve the system, but not the people.
Lisa talked about being “…on the higher end of being responsible. Even though I don’t have a permanent place to stay right now, I still manage to do everything I need to do, with very little money. Very, very little.” She wants to find a job, but is restricted by the needs of caring for her daughter – she has to be able to get her to school and pick her up, and jobs require flexibility that she does not have, particularly since she has no reliable support structure.
She finished High School, and even began courses at St. John’s, which has a program for low income and homeless students, whereby they can earn an Associate’s Degree. She had to quit soon after starting though, because she and her daughter got sick. As she puts it, “it was a rough winter.” She would like to return to school though, and thinks about becoming a teacher. She recalled that when she was in school she was teased and bullied, and didn’t have many friends. There were teachers who were there for her and encouraged her. They saw her for who she was. Because they took on the role of being her friends, she is inspired to do what they did.
For Lisa, the goal is stability for herself and her daughter. She is awaiting placement in subsidized housing, which will allow her to move from an unsafe situation to one where she and her daughers can feel settled.
Lisa tells her story with a complete lack of bitterness or resentment. Her story is simply hers.
She was very clear about the value of not judging people. Homelessness and poverty don’t always look the way people think they do. The people that look homeless, those that have “the rancidness” are only a small portion of those who actually are struggling. “People see me in the street and yeah, I have an iPhone. But that doesn’t mean I have anything. All I have is my health. I have my daughter. And I’m alive. And you know, that’s what I have.”