Faces of Hope: Stephanie

“Samaritan House had a moving out party for us. They gave me and my daughter this wall art for our new home. My case manager got us a place at Joshua Station transitional housing. They only picked like three people out of 20 to get a place. That was kind of an honor for me. We’re packing up and moving soon.

“I’ve been homeless for about a year and a half almost. I was in a very toxic relationship. He would hit me. I would press charges and he would verbally abuse me, then he would physically abuse me more. My kids never saw the physical abuse, but they saw him hollering at me. They were scared. I got away and then he got me evicted from a couple of places. He would come and scream and then I’d let him inside. But he’d make holes from punching or kicking. I put a restraining order on him but I lost my place. I first was at the VOA and then I went to stay with my friend for a while.

“Then I came here to Samaritan House with my daughter because the family floor construction was done. It was right after coronavirus started. Everybody was really nice. Our case manager, Chris, helped me a lot. He gave me words of wisdom, and I really appreciate what he’s done for me. I get anxiety bad sometimes but Chris just helped me through it. I was just going through the same thing everyday. We had to eat in our room. We had to wash our hands and wear a mask. They took our temperature twice a day. My job was to clean all the doorknobs. Samaritan House really did a really good job making sure nobody got the virus.

“I was going to school at Emily Griffith, but they had to close it because of the coronavirus. I was so disappointed. I’m going to try again. I’m very low income, and I’m trying to get social security. So yeah, quite a journey, huh?”
-Stephanie