09/16/2026
I grew up in a broken home where abuse, instability, and foster care were part of my childhood for as long as I can remember. I never truly had parents until middle school, and I was adopted shortly before my seventeenth birthday. Even then, I was still trying to understand what safety, love, and stability really looked like.
As a young adult, I made poor choices while searching for belonging and security. I bounced between friends’ homes and family members until I met the father of my oldest daughter. I met him at eighteen and became a mother at twenty. What I hoped would become a family quickly turned into another painful chapter. He struggled with pill addiction and became abusive.
Right before my daughter turned two, I found the strength to leave. For months, we lived in domestic violence shelters, carrying everything we owned from place to place while I tried to figure out how to survive and protect my child.
Life did not suddenly become easier after that. There were more hard choices, more uncertainty, and many nights wondering where we would end up next.
At twenty-four, I became pregnant with my youngest daughter. After her father and I separated, we had nowhere to go. Family was not an option, and we were stranded in a different county without support or stability. That was when I found Family Promise, a homeless program for families. My oldest daughter was four years old, and my youngest was only six or seven months old.
We entered the program with very little, but for the first time in a long time, I also entered with hope.
We completed the program and moved into an apartment. When our lease ended, the director of Family Promise offered us a place in one of their transitional homes alongside another family. I accepted because at the time, my job barely covered childcare expenses. Living there gave me something I had rarely experienced before: the chance to breathe, regroup, and save money for a better future.
Eventually, I found a better-paying job and stayed in that area for about three years. Still, my heart missed Morristown and the family connections I still had there. We moved back and stayed with a family member for eight months while I worked and waited for an apartment to become available.
Right before my youngest daughter started Pre-K, we moved into the apartment that became our home for the next ten years.
During that decade, I worked multiple jobs to keep us afloat. I paid the bills without reliable child support and raised my girls mostly on my own, with very little help. There were many days I felt exhausted, discouraged, and unsure how I would make everything work—but somehow, we always made it through.
Then one day at work, I saw an opening for a case manager position at MATS. I almost did not apply because I felt like I had no chance. But I knew I wanted more for my daughters and for myself than simply surviving paycheck to paycheck while relying on food stamps. I also wanted to show others that with hard work, determination, and support, it is possible to rebuild your life.
By the grace of God, I got the job.
I started on third shift as a case manager, then moved to day shift, and eventually became the executive assistant. Going from homeless to helping others who were facing homelessness felt like something I never could have imagined for myself.
For years, I believed getting our apartment was the biggest blessing of my life—but God had even bigger plans.
My boss and her former assistant told me about the TCAC home-building program and encouraged me to apply. I did, and I was accepted. For the last two years, I have worked, saved, prayed, and hoped for the day my girls and I could leave our cramped two-bedroom apartment and finally have a home of our own.
Now that dream has become reality.
After everything we have survived—abuse, homelessness, instability, fear, and struggle—we finally have our dream home. I am overwhelmed with gratitude, joy, and thankfulness for God’s mercy and faithfulness.
My story is proof that where you begin does not have to determine where you end. What once felt impossible has become the life my daughters and I now get to live.
