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Individual Served
“If I can beat homelessness, I can beat anything!”
“I didn’t know what was wrong with me…I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat…I just didn’t care about life or nothing anymore.”
This is the way Maxine describes symptoms of depression. And, she describes turning to alcohol to cope, “I started drinking a lot and not caring about myself anymore.”
Maxine was living in her own place when symptoms started, but eventually she says she lost interest in caring for her apartment, too, “I moved a lot of people in to my unit. And, it got me kicked out.”
With nowhere else to go, Maxine headed for the street along with her two young children. “Me and my kids, we slept on benches some nights. Sometimes in abandoned houses, she says.”
After two years, Maxine could no longer take what street life was doing to her kids, “I wasn’t going to drag them just because I made a mistake. I wasn’t going to let them sleep out there one more night,” she says. Maxine asked family members to take her kids. And, she went back to the street.
Maxine says what happened next changed her life, “One day, I seen some people getting houses, apartments, and I’m sleeping outside Dorothy Day and I’m looking and I’m like, ‘What’s going on here?’”
Her observation led her to Julie Grothe, Director, Delancey Services . Maxine told Julie that she wanted to get off the street. So, the Delancey Street team partnered with Maxine to help her find housing and to create more stability in her life.
Fueled by her desire to get her kids back and with help and support from the team, Maxine started changing her life. She moved in to a safe, affordable apartment, received psychiatric services and medication to treat her depression, and began to address her drinking.
Partnership with the team and hard work paid off. Today, with Guild’s help, Maxine:
- lives in her own apartment, which she’s had for over two years
- has full custody of her two children.
- has been sober for over two years
- has goals for the future including getting her diploma and going to school to be a medical records technician.
Maxine says she’s a different person today than the one who sat outside the Dorothy Day, “Today, I’m more determined. And, I’m just a better person.”
“The sky is the limit,” she says. “If I can beat homelessness, I can beat anything!”
