My family of 5 moved to Arizona almost 2 years ago with the intention of getting to know my husbands family that he hadn’t seen in 25 years. It didn’t take them long to decide that we weren’t of their caliber and wanted nothing to do with us. We had always been very independent and had very little family support in the past so it was disappointing but not a fatal loss. It wasn’t until my husband lost his job that we fully realized that we were hundreds of miles from home and had literally no one. We found ourselves evicted with no one to turn to. Thankfully the facility I worked for had a double wide behind it that we were able to rent out. We made it by as best we could in a town with nothing even remotely close public transportation, a car that kept breaking down, a complete lack of jobs and rentals so scarce they were more imaginary than real. In May my husband had been unable to find a job for almost a year and barely scraping by financially my boss gave me a 30 day notice to vacate. We couldn’t find a rental for the life of us, our car went down for the count completely and my family found ourselves homeless and on the streets for the first time in our lives. No matter what we did we couldn’t manage to pull ourselves out. At the end of September I got suspended from my job for two weeks with out pay for being sick. As you can imagine that loss of money really really hurt us and put us in an even worse spot than we were. On a whim I applied at a facility up in flagstaff that one of my residents loved, always raved about and missed terribly. I figured it was a long shot but nothing was working out where I was anyways so I had to send them my resume. Surprisingly they called me and offered me the job. We thought it was a dream come true that job was going to give us a shot to actually get off the streets. Since we were already camping in tents we figured why not go to Flagstaff. We could camp there for a short while, explore the resources available in Flag and have some sort of roof over our head before November hit. It felt like all our hard work was finally getting us somewhere, this job came with so many opportunities that I honestly never thought that I would have the chance to experience. So we pack up and basically leave pretty much everything. Took off with what fit in the car with my kids.
Two days after we got to flag I had orientation, on the way to pick me up my husband got in a fender bender. Being new to Arizona and unfamiliar with your DOT rules we had no idea what was going on when the officer took our license plate. We had just bought the car and the lady we got it from had been giving me trouble about switching things over.. apparently the insurance on the car lapsed and the plate was suspended?? (That’s not a thing in Washington so still slightly confused.)
That little accident… lost us our license plate making driving it illegal led to a shattered windshield making it dangerous to ride in and basically took away my ability to get to this amazing new life changing job. I had to make it work.. we moved here for this and it was our shot. It was going to change Our situation. Luckily, we met a gentleman that was more than willing to help get me to work and thank God for him too because I had to work at 6 o’clock in the morning. He stuck around for about two weeks and then took off in the middle of the night without saying a word. I woke up the next morning to find him gone and without a ride to work. My boss was super understanding and sent somebody else that worked at the same place to pick me up. So thankful! The next day i had to start exploring the ride share options in Flag. That first day it cost me $60 dollars to get to and from work, the third day my other supervisor was awesome and came and got me for work but I spent $30 in the uber home. The fourth and fifth day both cost me $80 each. (I had to take a draw from my check everyday to be able to pay for the rides. The sixth day I couldn’t get Uber or Lyft to pick up my ride, I tried and I tried and nobody was picking it up it just kept telling me that there were no drivers. My job had a zero tolerance attendance policy and even though they knew my situation I lost my job because I couldn’t make it to work. I was so close to my dreams being set in motion to become a reality and just like that I lost it all. It was an unbelievable. My husband got a job at the lumber yard About half mile away from where we are camping and has been the only one working for the last month because I cant get a job without a car, I got offered a new job two days ago and I’m really excited! My husband works late nights and goes to work at 4pm and gets off at 4 am. One of his coworkers said that I could ride back into town with him in the am when he got off and pick me up from work when he is headed back out to Bellemont for work.I’m up And then when he came back to Bellmont to go to work. I’m very thankful for he’s willing to help for a little bit because that is going to change everything drastically.
We can’t afford propane for heat or cooking so at least 3 nights a week we go without. We have no way to get anywhere, getting any food or water is closer to impossible than doable. We all have maybe 3 Changes of clothing total, it’s a good week if we can afford to pay for a shower at pilot. we can’t be in town because we’re in a tent. I can’t walk to town because it’s a really long walk and my body unfortunately no matter how much I try would probably just laugh at me and fail. I can’t afford ride share like uber or Lyft and there’s no public transportation from Bellmont to Flag.
My family has been on the streets for nine months now, nine hard, exhausting, defeating and unbelievably long never ending months. It is really really hard for me to admit that I need help, to myself or others, so please excuse my awkward babbling, while I do a poor job putting myself out there and asking. I need help. We are having a really hard making ends meet, we have no car, no home, no security, and faith that we will pull out off this is really running low. December is supposed to be packed full of magic and miracles and I think all kids deserve to see that magic in their life. Personally I want my kids to believe and be open to seeing as long as possible. Our situation has been really really hard on all of us, my kids worst of all. They’re amazing resilient kids and have been super all the way through this. But after so long of working our butts off and trying to change our situation and not making it, they’re starting to doubt that life will ever go back to “normal” and then with Christmas here and the holidays, they’re even more down in the dumps, beaten and discouraged it breaks my heart to see them like that because they deserve so much more.
I’m asking for help, any help. I’m not asking for any thing specific I’m asking for any and all to help (advice and ideas welcome too) my family has been through hell and for the first time in nine months there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and we just need a little bit of help to get a little bit closer to It. I know that’s quite the read and if you made it all the way at the end, well that means a lot to me. I really do appreciate you taking your time to do so. We are so close to being able to give our children their childhood back. We don’t know anybody in this town. Heck, we don’t know anybody in the state and we have never been so close to giving up. Giving up never been in my nature, I’m that girl that believes you can achieve anything you set your mind to. You’ll have to give your all and work your butt off but you can do it. I’ve always been somebody that can pull miracles out of the air and move mountains but right now I need a little assistance to be able to do so. I know I can have anything in the world as long as I work my butt off that’s how i was raised. I just need a little help getting my butt to work my butt off There is literally nothing that I know of that I can use there’s no resource that I know there’s no I’ve searched in search that I could use to help change the situation so if anybody knows of any resources or any options that I’m clueless to please please please please please share the knowledge anybody that is willing to help in anyway it would be very graciously accepted, and you would be a major blessing and a part of putting my family back together. Thank you, sincerely from the bottom of my heart.
- Listing ID: 11721
- My City: Flagstaff