A Month of Thanksgiving - Day 1 (Sunday)

 A Month of Thanksgiving - Day 1 (Sunday)

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. The Holy Bible - Colossians 3:16

At no other time in my life have I ever been so aware of the necessity to be thankful for all things than when we were in a crisis of homelessness. This year marks 30 years of passage since that period of my life and I want to call it out in a special way to commemorate and capture the significance of it in these posts about gratitude during this month. It is by no means the only month for which we should call out our thanks for God's provision and our many great blessings, but for me it marks a timeline of the events that shaped my adult life and made me the strong, capable woman that I am today.

You see, homelessness and poverty were never something we chose - but it happened to me. Thirty years ago, we were a young couple aged 19 and 21 with a toddler and a newborn baby in 1990, and we had been working as assistant apartment managers (which took care of our home and income at the same time). When the ownership of the complex changed, my ex-husband and I found ourselves homeless and we had to seek a new place to live and find jobs (well one of us, since I was 6 months pregnant by then). Being the warm summer months, we managed for a while in a camper trailer on my relatives' property in Redmond, expecting fully to be moved into a new apartment and find new jobs before Fall. By October, and 8 months pregnant with our baby, that had not happened and our temporary home was becoming more risky due to the leaky propane tank for heating and cooking, and no running water. We were still unable to find stable jobs or housing. A decision had to be made for the welfare of our toddler and unborn baby. We went to stay in the North Shore Family Shelter, in Kenmore, WA and our newborn son Alex was born during our stay there at Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland.

A newspaper reporter interviewed us for a Thanksgiving Day article very soon afterward on the Eastside Multi-Service Centers of North and East County. I am the young woman in the photo from that article.

We had just that week moved into our transitional housing apartment in a four-plex run by the Catholic Community Services and Housing at the Crossroads. My son Alex was only six days old, born during our stay at the Shelter. It was one of the most miraculous things I had ever encountered, to be given a ray of hope for our future at that scary time in our life. I am writing about how this and other assistance programs and volunteers have been an integral part of my climb out of that valley in my life and shaped us.

My husband and I had been offered a wonderful opportunity for a more long-term assistance program. You see, most shelters only provide a guaranteed stay of about 3 weeks, maximum and they try to help you find more permanent arrangements or help finding another shelter. We also quickly realized that getting jobs making barely minimum wage were not going to help us become stable long-term.

 

Getting more training

When Alex was about 8 weeks old, I started working in a food service job, in a grocery store bakery, but couldn't make enough working with only a high school diploma and with very few useful job skills, I was at a dead-end career-wise. It was apparent that I needed further training in something else in order to get out of the welfare rut. I was offered an opportunity to go to school for six months for a certificate in computer applications and along with that, was also given support for childcare through YWCA during my training course. They also helped me with other needs such as diapers for the babies and transportation when I needed help getting somewhere. We had only one car and it was not running very well. 

 

Another child comes along

After our third child, Timothy was born in 1992, I had just graduated from that training program - a business computer applications certificate program at Lake Washington Technical College in Kirkland. I was separated from my then husband, and trying to get an office career off the ground as a single-mother of three young children and juggling daycare, work and home responsibilities.

 

The welfare trap

I struggled to get on my feet and off of public assistance - become gainfully employed. I was determined to get beyond the welfare system and move on with my life. I was extremely motivated, a positive thinking person and determined to conquer adversity. There were just so many variables in the welfare system that people who don’t know the intimate details don't consider. Those are often the ones that gripe about lazy welfare moms and complain they are drain on society. In fact, many of them are not lazy and are extremely motivated to become productive, successful and financially stable members of society.

 

Charities helped me to succeed

By 1994 I had a full-time job in a city office, using my new computer skills that I had trained on was and learning more useful skills on the job. I was divorced that year and by the time he left me, as a single mother I was completely off public assistance and the housing program, but I still struggled with a tremendous amount of pressure and financial problems. My utility billing job at a local city office paid well enough – a few dollars above minimum wage even, but barely kept us afloat. I tried many things to better my position and received mentoring from an older, grandmotherly female friend. I took Toastmaster's training for communication, speech and professional presentation skills. I struggled with finances, daycare and discipline problems and lacked the resources to handle the challenges of parenting strong-willed, special needs children on my own.

 

Continual struggle but God was by our side

Life and finances were still a constant struggle for years, but I would not let setbacks hold me back for long.  Success was not a straight path, and we went through some more hard times before things got better for us.

(to be continued)