Workforce housing empowered Carmela to rebuild her life
By TV Miskowski
Carmela’s life looked very different before St. Vincent de Paul’s Rosalie’s Place helped her secure housing and employment.
Originally, Carmela was a hardworking caretaker who worked and rented a room in the same home. It seemed like a great situation at first before unhealthy patterns started to make life difficult.
“Being home was scary,” she said. “I was lost and scared.”
Eventually, things came to a head, and she lost her job and her housing in the same moment, which caused her to lose everything else she had built in her life. She felt like she had hit the lowest point in her life. Although her children supported her through everything, her struggle damaged her self-image, and she was ashamed to reach out to them for help.
Despite the dire circumstances, she got a job at a gas station and continued to work shifts while staying at a local shelter. While visiting the Phoenix Dining Room located at the downtown Key Campus, Carmela impressed the staff with her motivation to get a job that would help sustain permanent housing. The timing was perfect because SVdP was opening a workforce shelter. It turned out she was the perfect candidate for the shelter’s first-ever resident, and she was able to move in not long after!
Carmela had the drive to get her life back, and Rosalie’s Place gave her a safe place to do that. Thanks to the housing workforce, she learned how to build a successful resume and practiced interviewing with staff. She was even able to train and become a leasing agent and was also given a bike to make transportation to work easier.
“Rosalie’s Place made me do a lot of soul-searching. I don’t take things for granted anymore,” she said. “If I can do it, anybody can do it.”
When she found an apartment with utilities included that was only five minutes away from her new job at McDonald’s, she felt like it was meant to be. Even better, she lives close to the lightrail and bus system.
Carmela’s favorite part about her new place in life is her improved relationship with her two children. The stability of having consistent places to live and work makes it easier for her to spend time with her kids regularly. She feels good that she is in a place that makes them proud.
“My children are happy to hear where I’m at now,” she said.
Carmela is so grateful for her time at Rosalie’s Place and SVdP that she wants to come back and volunteer her own time.
“Thank you so very much for what you’ve done for me. I’m in a lot better place,” she said. “I want to keep helping others. I want to give back what they did for me.”
