About five years ago, the place I was living became unsafe for me and my one-year-old daughter. But how do you choose between danger you can see, the one that you face in your home, and the one that you can't see – homelessness? It's a soul-wrenching choice, especially when your child is the one to face the consequences. Having faith in myself, my skills, and my experience, and knowing I could depend on those, and knowing how unsafe I really was if I stayed, I chose to leave.

I stayed in shelters with my baby for more than six months, during which time I applied for about
50 jobs a week, and at the same time, applied for every assistance program and housing program available. I had to try to build a new life in a number of weeks, something most people build over a number of years.

At first glance, the available programs are unbelievable. I never would have thought there would be so many programs designed to help people. But once you begin trying to obtain services, you begin to realize - this is no miracle. This is an endless road, one filled with potholes and detours and wrong turns. It’s filled with mandatory appointments you can’t attend because you have no gas and no money for bus tokens; document requirements, you can't provide because you can’t pay for an ID or birth certificate, and waiting lists that are years long. So you have to decide whether to spend each day trying to fill your empty stomach – or that of your child – or try to check one of these items off your list of things to do. Should you find shelter for the upcoming night, or should you try to get a birth certificate instead?

Something else I faced is the stigma associated with being homeless, and the judgments from so many people. No one understands how a parent can become homeless. People presume it's due to being irresponsible, selfish, or otherwise faulty. What people don't realize is to have a home, one needs a job. To have a job, one needs a home. To interview for a job, one needs a phone. To pay for a phone, one needs a job. To apply for a job, one needs transportation. To pay for transportation, one needs money. The system is a great big catch 22, and once you slip down the spiral, getting back up is nearly impossible.

We don't realize just how fragile our lives are until the fabric that holds them together unravels. Then suddenly, we have no way to put them back.

I write this now from a very different place. I've got a stable home and a stable income. My daughter has a stable life. But it took me years to get back what I lost. And our struggles are far from over. We still have to visit food banks every month to make ends meet. We belong to an alumni program from one of the shelters I stayed at that helps provide us with food and toiletries on a regular basis. Without services like these, we wouldn't make it.

What stands out to me though, after all this time, are the kindnesses. Two days ago, a stranger came to my house with a basket of Christmas dinner food, a box of hand-me-down clothes for my daughter, and some Christmas toys. I'd never met her. We connected briefly via email, she heard that my husband had been hospitalized, and that we were struggling, and she came.

I remember once telling another mother from Blue's school that my food stamps hadn't come in about four months, and about three hours later there was a knock on my door. She showed up with BAGS of food. It was enough to feed us for two weeks.

My car broke down, and I was given the name of a mechanic who had also "seen hard times." I took my car to him, and he fixed it free of charge, knowing there was nothing I could do to pay for it.

Even my computer was a gift from a non-profit agency that learned of my aspirations to write and wanted to help me.

My life is full of love. I see it from everywhere, all the time.

I still have the handmade blankets that were given to my daughter on her first night in a shelter, to make her feel more at home. Even that early on in my journey, the love people have to give was abundant.

Early on, I tried starting a service to give back. I called it Hope Phone. It was a phone number people could call who needed help finding ANYTHING. I was the queen of resources. I knew them backwards and forwards, and anyone who called me was able to get the help I needed. I helped loads of people. I kept families off the streets. I found homes for some of them. I found food for some of them. I did as much as I could... but Hope Phone failed in the long run because I spent too much time helping and not enough time making it a business.

Now, I just try to help one person at a time, when I can. Just the same way they help me.