I was born to a single, teenage mother. I grew up homeless even though I didn’t realize it at the time. My mom and I used to couch surf or stay in the spare spaces that people had, either that or we would drive. I thought it was normal tbh. Sometimes she would drive all night. I reflect back on my childhood, and it gives me strength to raise my own kids when times get tough. I always made having a home my first priority for my family, but sometimes things are beyond your control and bad things happen, like becoming homeless as a disabled person with three special needs kids. At the end of 2022, that is where we ended up.
When you are homeless, there is no fridge, no kitchen, no showers, no convenience. Fast food seems like it’s cheap, but it’s not. It is poor quality, cheap ingredients, that are mostly sugar; designed to flood pleasure centers in your brain to make you addicted to their chemicals and bring back your wallet.
Towards the end of 2022, my family and I found ourselves homeless again, the second time since I had been out on my own. It was a classic example of what we all dread. We were living paycheck to paycheck, with no savings. The landlord decided to sell. We were poor and had crappy credit. There were no available houses in our budget that would take us because we were a credit risk. Thankfully we were able to avoid having an eviction, which would have made us dead in the water in the rental hunt. So, despite the pandemic, the weather, stress induced fights, pleading with anyone who might help, there was nothing we could do but give up our home. I saw it as our only option to avoid eviction. We moved all of our possessions into storage and our large family into a tiny motel room, and had to make constant trips to get things we needed.
Without a kitchen or a real fridge, we were forced to live on convenience foods and fast food. Having given up fast food, soda, processed foods, and being used to cooking everything homemade, this was a shock to our systems, and a massive blow to our wallet. For our family of five, eating off the value menu, the bill was still almost $100 dollars.
I knew we couldn’t eat like that and survive financially, and find a new place. Not to mention what it was doing to our bodies. I talked my husband into bringing a couple of appliances to our meager motel room: our crock pot, and our instant pot.
Talk about a game changer! I was able to buy quality foods like chicken or a roast and cook them in the room. Then we could store the leftovers in the mini fridge. I bought quality snacks and non perishable foods to keep us going, and thankfully we didn’t face hunger during our darkest times. We didn’t eat the healthiest, sure, but we didn’t break the bank and we were able to save up enough money to become debt free, pay off our collections, and find a new place to call home.
And considering that there are five of us, all with special needs, living in a super cramped motel with two dogs, we actually bonded more as a family. When we finally got our new house, even though everyone had their own room, we still all slept in the living room for the first few nights to be together. Our first dinner was home cooked Chinese food on an old card table, surrounded by paint buckets for chairs.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was because we were so thankful for our new home.
Welcome to GLO Productions! 