Queen's Determination By Brittnee Crawford, Development & Communications Manager
Queen grew up at the height of economic success in what is now the Rust Belt. With two degrees and living wage jobs for her mother and father at General Motors—life was good. Queen and her two brothers had a happy childhood in their small town, surrounded by friends and relatives. A middle class life enabled frequent trips back and forth from Michigan to New York to visit family every year. In high school, Queen became interested in the medical field, working as a volunteer candy striper in the local hospital. Her passion caring for others grew, and after high school, she began to wonder about what was next.
As the baby in a family of veterans, Queen always felt a calling to follow in the footsteps of her father and older brother, and in her early 20’s joined the armed forces. Following boot camp in Texas, she was serving active duty in the Air Force when her father fell ill. With her mother already frail and unable to care for him herself, Queen received a release to become non-active and returned to Michigan.
By the time she returned home, the bedroom community outside of Detroit she had grown up in felt desolate. “We didn’t have clean water,” says Queen. “We had lost all of those good jobs, and it was like a ghost town.” While working in a series of entry-level positions in call centers to help make ends meet, Queen was present for the passing of her mother and became her father’s sole caregiver. She soon realized that entry-level work was no longer sustainable to support both of them. She decided to return to her passion, and studied to become a Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) to find more stable employment. But her father’s health soon worsened, and he passed away.
Queen knew her parents would have wanted her to have a better life—not just scraping together enough to survive. She needed a fresh start. She began looking for work in familiar places from her childhood that had more job prospects than her little town in Michigan could offer. So she packed up and moved to New York City. There were plenty of jobs and she soon took a per diem CNA position, but the cost of housing was much more than she was able to afford with an unpredictable income. Without other options, Queen entered a city shelter, and discovered a life marked with anxiety, complications, and instability.
During the year she spent at the shelter, Queen became resolute about continuing her education. Even though it felt unsafe—the police were constantly being called—she was able to study in the community room and complete phlebotomy and EKG certification programs. By this point, however, she had begun exclusively accepting overnight shifts so she didn’t have to sleep at the shelter, and was able to take showers at the hospital. To get a few hours of rest after a long night of work, she would pay for a single subway fare and sleep on the train, because it felt safer than sleeping in the shelter. Trying to work and go to school on top of all of that instability started to become unmanageable.
Queen worked with the staff at the shelter to begin visiting transitional and permanent housing providers in the area, and was able to get a referral to HousingPlus. Before her visit, the woman who would eventually become her case manager sent her a description and photos of the place that Queen now calls home. She was thrilled. Upon moving into her partially furnished apartment, her case manager Nekeisha helped Queen get SNAP benefits and other services, a coat for the winter, and even connected her with the on-site Clinical Care Manager to help her process the last year she had spent in the shelter.
Then Nekeisha made her get down to business. “I came to understand how powerful goal-setting was,” Queen says. “Ms. Nekeisha felt like my very own life coach, checking in with me once a week to make sure I was doing ok and seeing how I was progressing on my goals.” She also worked with the HousingPlus Employment Services Support team to enroll in a Licensed Practical Nurse program to take the next step in furthering her career.
Now, Queen spends her weeks working and studying, but takes an occasional break for a nice long walk in the park in her new neighborhood, where she reflects on how far she’s come. “I’m just grateful to have a roof over my head,” she says. Of her experience working with HousingPlus staff, she says it’s all in the name: “It’s housing and a ‘plus’ for your life. When women arrive here, they need to rebuild physically and mentally, and they get that network of support to succeed. The case managers do this job because they believe in the women—always going above and beyond to help however they can.”
A Little Jingle and Some Mingle
Last Friday, HousingPlus hosted our annual tenant holiday party in Brooklyn, which saw women and their children enjoy a catered meal and fun holiday happenings. Moms and kids alike enjoyed the magic and illusions of Ding-a-Ling the clown, participated in a holiday sing along, and enjoyed the fanciful “Toyland,” whose elves distributed a variety of holiday gifts to children living in our housing.
All of our work over the past year wouldn’t have been possible without you, our donors. Please remember HousingPlus in your end-of-year giving for 2019, which enables us to help women like Queen build a new life after experiencing homelessness, and also supports social activities throughout the year.
We are happy to share that HousingPlus was selected by Amazon to fulfill items on our AmazonSmile Charity List--this unexpected generosity is part of the company's #DeliveringSmiles effort this holiday season.
We are grateful for a continued grant from our partners at ConEdison for their funding in support of our employment service for veterans.
Thank you to the Hyde and Watson Foundation for a generous capital support gift to support our work to create a community space for women at our housing sites in Brooklyn.
Thank you to our friends atChurch on the Hill and Old First Reformed Church of Brooklyn for collecting holiday gifts that were distributed to children this past week.
We are thankful for our friends at Marble Collegiate Church, who generously donated miniature trees that served as centerpieces at our tenant holiday party, and were also raffled off to families at the end of the evening.
We are pleased to call the Sills Family Foundation sustaining partners, through a grant to support our general operations and funding to support a new capacity-building initiative.
We are grateful to Trinity Church Wall Street for a recent grant to add more units of housing to serve more women with families through the Women’s Community Justice Project.
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