I actually want to add on to this.
I've worked as an activist / advocate / nonprofit worker for almost a decade at this point. I focus very much on Homelessness and queer issues.
I have a story I tell folks when they are on the fence about the idea that homeless people can exist without it being their fault. I call it the "Sherry Story"
While working with a mutual aid group in my city, we started to regularly go out to a nearby park that lots of homeless folk would congregate in and we would give out food, supplies, and offer help in a bunch of different ways.
One of the other things we would do is we would talk to people. We would just TALK. So many groups that come out to feed, to "help", etc. they don't actually sit and talk to the folks that they are claiming to help.
That's a whole other can of worms that I can get into but through just talking and being in community with others, I met the "Sherry's".
There was Big Sherry (the mother) and Little Sherry (the daughter).
At the time that I met them, Little Sherry was 17.
Big Sherry used to be married to a wonderful man. Let's call this man "Phil". Phil was great. He was a loving dad and a responsible and respectable business owner, owned his own home and drove a car that was recently new on the market.
He worked hard so that Big Sherry could stay home and Little Sherry could attend a private elementary and middle school before she attended a private high school.
Private school was expensive, but he managed to bring home enough still to give Big Sherry a comfortable allowance and to still put some away for Little Sherry's college fund AND to put some away for retirement.
One day, while out doing some shopping with Little Sherry (who was 10 at the time), Big Sherry has a stroke. She goes down to the ground and breaks part of her lower jaw and injures her neck.
She goes to the hospital. It's a hemorrhagic stroke. They will have to do an expensive and invasive surgery with a low chance of complete success and it will have a long recovery time.
Phil, being an amazing husband, has good health insurance. Phil empties his bank account and has them perform the surgery and then argues with insurance later.
Good news: It was a success!
Bad news: Insurance refused to cover a lot of it. Savings is wiped out.
Phil hires lawyers, expensive lawyers, and insurance covers more of it but still not all. The lawyers were a good investment though as it does end up giving them back a little bit more. Their savings is dwindling but they will recover...
Then the accident happens. There is bad weather and Phil doesn't want to make his workers drive out in the middle of a snowstorm to just do busy work when they can stay home, stay warm, and stay safe.
The shop is right down the road, what could go wrong? Ice, ice could go wrong. Phil hits a patch, goes headfirst into a tree, and no one finds him for a couple hours. By then, it's too late.
Now Big Sherry and Little Sherry are alone. They have medical dept to deal with that they don't entirely know how to deal with. There are bills to be paid, a business to run, a school that needs tuition money every 12 months, taxes, paperwork, a funeral to plan and pay for, and on and on and on.
And Big Sherry hasn't had a job since she was 17 and she never even bothered graduating....She is still working to recover from her own medical trauma.
Sometimes Big Sherry will have seizures. She is afraid to go to the Dr in case something new is found...navigating insurance is hard and required expensive lawyers last time...
Phil's family aren't good folks. They constantly try to take advantage. Even now, they argue and argue over what little estate he had, over the business (suddenly it's a FAMILY business?!?), even argue over Little Sherry and if she will stay with her own MOTHER?
Big Sherry is able to slow the fall a little. It's not a plummet but it's still steep. There is so much to navigate and so few resources she has access to. The money from savings is all gone, she is in debt, the company was legal forfeited to Phil's brother.
Her family wants nothing to do with her. She made the wrong decision, getting knocked up by her high school sweet heart. Even though he worked real hard to provide for her and even did pretty well at that, she is still a shame to her family. What will the church say?
Big Sherry can't keep a job for long, her seizures ensure that. And she doesn't have a high school degree or GED, and she can't seem to navigate insurance.
She keeps trying to work with different social workers to help herself and her daughter but that just leads to CPS getting called and she can't lose the one thing she has left.
So she does what she can to make a little bit of money to make sure Little Sherry is fed, and she works hard to make sure Little Sherry is left alone. They live in a little tent in the back of the park, on a dry river bed. They monitor the weather closely so they don't get flooded.
They get harassed sometimes, and sometimes Little Sherry does her own thing while her mom is away, but her mom doesn't need to know how Little Sherry got that little stash of money she keeps hidden nearby....
Little Sherry doesn't go to school. If she goes, CPS will get called. Instead she is home schooled. Her mom did learn how to file for that, at least.
The goal is for Little Sherry to get her GED and then to work to get various grants and scholarships and go to school. To focus on stability for herself and then, once she is stable, she can help her mom.
She will be her own self made woman, even if there does happen to be a man (or woman!) who is willing to do all that hard work for her, she won't be letting that happen!
Little Sherry doesn't know that once she is stable, her mom intends to end her life. Big Sherry knows that there is a lucrative life insurance policy on herself, it's the same as her husband. Through everything, she made sure to keep up THOSE payments....and her debt dies with her.
Little Sherry wants to be a nurse when she grows up.
