Homeless not Hopeless: Audrey's Story

by Jessica Mowry
Based on an interview on July 29, 2009


Audrey is a happily married mother of three. Although her children are the center of her world, she has worked full- and part-time, on and off over the last eight years, to make ends meet. She works hard, makes good choices, and considers her children her number one priority.

But Audrey lives in a shelter—the Montana Rescue Mission’s Women’s and Family Shelter in downtown Billings. Her first shelter stay was last December, as the country was gripped by recession; she and her family spent Christmas there. Audrey and her husband, Mike, worked hard to get back on their feet, and they did so—but only temporarily. They moved back to the shelter in mid-July. “I’ve been humbled in so many ways in this past year—you have no idea,” she tells me during the interview. “I don’t want my kids to be at the shelter; I don’t want to be poor.”

Audrey’s life has been difficult from the start: when she was just a year old, her father committed suicide. Although she has no memory of her father, she knows things changed after his death. “He was a bank manager; we had a pool, a house and our own rooms. To a lot of people that’s average stuff, but for me that seems like a whole different life,” she says. Audrey’s problems were compounded by her mother’s instability; for years, Audrey’s mother suffered from bipolar disorder and was suicidal. “I went through a lot with my mom, and there were times [growing up] when we would have to beg her, ‘No mom, please don’t kill yourself. We love you.’” Despite this, “I don’t blame her for anything, the stuff we went through. I still love her,” she says. “Even though things were hard, it made me who I am today. It made me stronger as a person, and I realize certain things I wouldn’t do with my kids.”

“Growing up in a big family, I knew what it took to raise a child,” Audrey says as she thinks back to the news of her first pregnancy. Then 18, Audrey had dropped out of high school and has been on her own for a year with her husband, Mike. Smiling, she launches into her “sweet love story”: from their first meeting at age thirteen, Audrey was smitten with the boy who would become her husband. As the years went by, their friendship turned to love, and Audrey gave birth to their first child, Dylan, just a few months shy of her nineteenth birthday. Baby Aiden arrived eighteen months later.

To support her happy, growing family, Audrey worked full-time as a waitress at a local restaurant. “I had so much money then,” she says wistfully. But her third and final pregnancy hit her hard—she struggled with severe depression, and during the last months of her pregnancy she experienced unremitting false labor pains. In spite of her struggles, Audrey was back at work just two weeks after giving birth to her daughter Alyssa, now three.

Shortly after Alyssa’s birth, Audrey left her restaurant job in search of better pay as a cocktail waitress. But the couple found themselves living paycheck to paycheck—it wasn’t easy struggling as a cocktail waitress “happy to get fifty cents” as a tip. “We would save money, but when you don’t make that much it’s hard to hold onto it for emergencies.” Then Mike landed a job with Sysco. The couple finally had some breathing room, and Audrey quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom. But in November of last year, Mike was let go, causing a downward spiral of unpaid bills and late fees. But the bad luck didn’t end there--two weeks before losing their home, their car broke down and the mechanic told them repairs would cost $2400. Unable to catch up, the family arrived, on foot, at the Women’s and Family Shelter in mid-December.

Determined to stay at the shelter only long enough to catch back up, Audrey worked two jobs while her husband continued searching for employment. It was not an easy time. “Keeping a job and having a job has been getting harder and harder. I love serving tables—I feel like you are in control of your money. If you’re attentive and friendly and know how to read a person that really affects how much money you make,” she says. Once Mike acquired a job at a local restaurant, the family was able to leave the shelter and move into their own trailer.

With another chance at a new start, the couple was very conscious of their budget and aware of what they had to do. But then Audrey’s boss ‘temporarily’ cut her hours and she was left waiting—without a job, without income. “I was starting to hurt at this point. I needed a job, I needed to be working.” The economy was failing and she was desperate to find work. Left in limbo by her previous employer, Audrey swallowed her pride and went back to the very restaurant she had left months before. “I’ve never begged for anything, but that day I begged for my job back,” she said. She was not granted her second chance, and in July the family moved back into the shelter.

Mike continues to work at the restaurant, and Audrey is still looking for work—submitting numerous applications across town, as well as considering pre-college courses to gain skills to qualify for better jobs. Despite their situation, the family is optimistic. “They’re happy as long as we’re all together,” she says of her three children, who are aware that their mom and dad are having a hard time, “I don’t tell them all of the details, but they know. Everything we do is for the kids.”

Misfortune and bad luck have put this family on the streets. No crimes have been committed, yet they suffer severely. Living in poverty is not an attractive lifestyle, but as this young family has found, sometimes there isn’t a choice. Audrey’s story is a real story of an uphill struggle. Despite the hardships, she remains optimistic about the future and what she can become—both for herself and her family. As she fully utilizes the resources offered at the Women’s and Family shelter, she makes plans for yet another try at a better life. The commitment she has for her husband and children is unmistakable. As she opened her heart to me, I was able to see how completely her story broke the stereotypical mold, and how the same misfortunes could cripple any number of people in the Billings community.

For more information about the Montana Rescue Mission’s Women’s and Family Shelter and how you can contribute, visit http://www.montanarescuemission.org/.


HERE'S MORE ABOUT AUDREY AND HER FAMILY IN THE BILLINGS GAZETTE (DEC. 24, 2009)
http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/80075007.html