Keeping a roof over their heads
The domino effect began with a single illness that would change everything for Brendan Lorente’s family of six. His wife, Heather, contracted a highly contagious bacterial infection that required weeks of hospitalization, leaving the family on the brink of losing their home. But just as things were reaching a breaking point, they found help from their local St. Vincent de Paul Conference and received the support they desperately needed.
Before the family crisis, Brendan had a steady job as an automotive service writer, and his wife, Heather, picked up work as a cook to help support their family. Their finances were manageable. Until one day, Heather became ill.
Heather began experiencing severe abdominal cramping along with other gastrointestinal symptoms. When she visited the emergency room, they diagnosed her with Clostridioides difficile (C. Diff) a highly contagious bacterial infection, resistant to traditional treatment, and requiring her to remain isolated in the hospital for weeks.
I felt helpless,” Brendan remembers. “I fix cars. I fix people’s stuff. But I couldn’t fix this.
Brendan suddenly found himself in survival mode, trying to balance his job with caring for their four children and visiting Heather in the hospital. The pressure became too much. He soon lost his job, as he had to stay home to care for their four children, and the family’s main source of income vanished. The bills quickly piled up and rent fell behind.
“Being a man and being the sole provider and not being able to do that—it does something to your soul,” Brendan says.
Desperate to keep his family afloat, Brendan walked into a local food bank looking for resources. That’s where someone handed him a list of community resources. At the very top was St. Vincent de Paul.
Brendan called his local St. Vincent de Paul conference, told them his situation and soon enough, Vincentians from All Saints, one of SVdP's 80 conferences, visited his home to listen to his story and worked with the family step by step through the rent assistance application and provided food boxes. Even their landlord, seeing the family’s effort and struggle, agreed to hold off on eviction.
He said to me, ‘If you can’t pay me, how are you going to get another place to live?’ Brendan remembers.
When the call finally came that they had been approved for assistance, Brendan could hardly believe it.
“It felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders,” he says.
The support from SVdP covered their overdue rent, utility bills, and late fees, everything they needed to stay in their home and get back on their feet. For Heather, still recovering from her illness, it was the answer to weeks of prayer.
“I was praying daily, praying my rosary,” she says. “Just praying that we would have stability.”
The timing of the assistance meant the world to them, especially as their oldest daughter was about to graduate high school.
I couldn’t let my daughter face that milestone without knowing where she was going to sleep that night,” Heather says. “Our other daughter’s birthday was coming up and I'm just happy to have a home and a place for her to celebrate.
With more stability, Brendan feels determine to give back to his community and pay it forward.
“I told the Vincentians—if there’s ever a single mom who needs her car fixed, just call me. I’ll do it.”
The experience revealed to the couple the power of community support and the importance of organizations like SVdP that step in during families' darkest moments. Today, both parents are working again. They work opposite shifts to care for their children. While money remains tight, they're managing their bills and looking forward to the future where one day they will be able to buy their own home and purchase another car for their daughter before she starts college.
