homelessness can hit when you least expect it

I know there are some people that have heard me say that I was homeless, with 8 kids.  Let me start by saying it is very true.  Was I completely to blame? No.  Was the government to blame for lack of jobs or not enough help?  No.  It was a series of events that led to something much bigger than I could ever imagine.  No one thing can be blamed.

For me to really go in depth I would have to write a book.  For the short, which will still be really long, of it then stick around.  Perhaps grab a cup of coffee and a sweet treat to keep you company at the desk.

We were living in an apartment in a very busy town, which means the cost of living was high.  Being that my first two children are from a previous relationship and the father was paying some child support to me, I was living with my current DH and we both had good jobs and only 2 kids together, the cost of living was not that bad.  But then things started to take a downturn.

The apartment complex was not keeping up with the building and my children were getting sick, this and the rising cost of the apartment (and the city health inspector) caused us to look for another apartment.  I found one but it was income sensitive.  We qualified and it was going to be a major break so I said lets go!

We moved to a new city that I knew nothing about.  We only qualified because my family was "larger"  The apartment was home for several years, but we had to move, again, when we "outgrew" it by state standards.  State says *two heartbeats* per bedroom, and they only had 4 bedrooms so when I gave birth to my 5th child during our lease, we had to go upon renewal.

Which is when we found a very small 3 bedroom privately owned.  No one cares how many kids you have when the house is privately owned.  So thankfully this was our mainstay for a while.  One day a homeschooling friend in our group said that they were trying to sell their big 5 bedroom house, but they couldn't because it didn't really have a yard.  There was no side yard, or back yard, no garage, and barely any side yard on the street side.  There was yard in the front for the kids to play and the house was huge.  We could do land contract!  Perfect!

So we moved again.  Here I am, after birthing my 7th child, and come to find they have financial troubles.  They have to "turn in" the keys of the property that I am living in, but they can move us to this other property. So I move and we bring a renter to help us cover utilities, this place used to be 4 apartments and was turned into one house, so we just left one apartment and had the other 3 for us.

Until we found that they did not have occupancy permit!  So we moved, again.

While living in the new house we quickly realized that my ex was no longer going to help out with his two sons, I no longer had a job, and DH was never going to get a raise.  Food stamps were common place in our city for just a family of 3. let alone a family of 9, with a new one on the way. We asked our landlord to help us get help.

The only way that we could get help for our rent was if he tried to evict us.  I explained it to him so he applied through the court and we went and saw the judge and got the proper eviction papers.  Then I promptly turned them into the state asking for help.  DH had signed up for schooling so that he could get skilled in a new job that would be able to fully support us with out help from ex and with out help from foodstamps. We just needed to bide about 2 months or so.  Just enough to get through the program and we figured our savings would be depleted just about time for things to turn around.

Then we got the notice that DHS (department of human services) declined us.  They said that the 800$ of rent was not affordable.  A 4 bedroom house, housing 9 people.  We would have to move or figure something out they said.  So we applied for FEMA through our local community action agency.  They helped, but it was only a one month help per year.  So we would be back in the situation the following month.  We also found out that the program that DH was waiting to get in had been delayed.  He would be still stuck at his minimum wage job, and we would be homeless.

I researched camping, it was about 25$ a night, much better than a hotel, but not doable for an entire month when we were going to be living off of minimum wage and there was no way for me to get work with his work schedule.  We figured with our big van we could camp some, and sleep in the van some.  It would work until he got out of school and we did have ONE month more before the eviction went through because we got help we got that bonus month.

Our dear friends said come, move across the entire state and live with us.  We just bought a small home and you can stay with us till things turn around, at the max lets say a year.  * I was totally set on two months but they assured me it would probably be longer* So we moved.  Packed what we could and drove across the entire state with what could fit in a truck and van.



We live off of 30 to 32 thousand a year ( that's including the food assistance we receive!) and we live a good life. We can only thank our good friends that took us in.  Their family of 7 and my family of 10 all living in a 900 sq foot, 3 bedroom, house for a year.  Not only did they help when my family didn't, they went above and beyond and didn't judge.  They never once condemned any of our choices.  Thanks to them we are safely in a "fixer upper" and DH has finished his program, and found a good job.  We can only go up from here!

This is a true account of my story.  It is not a complete account as there is not time for it all in this blog. Remember that homelessness doesn't have a face.