At age 44, Cheryl believes she is
living the American Dream. She maintains
a full-time job doing work that she loves
and her nights and weekends are spent
cultivating her own small business. Her
rent-controlled apartment, which she
shares with her thirteen-year-old daughter,
Lori, is located in Manhattan’s
Greenwich Village. It’s an enviable
lifestyle, full of friends and family.
But it’s also one that Cheryl insists
would never have been possible if it
weren’t for the intervention WPA.
Cheryl’s
world was very different in the early
1990s. A drug addict for much of her
life, Cheryl had a lengthy criminal justice
history that included three felonies
for drug sales and credit card fraud.
Custody of Lori – who was, at that
time, barely out of diapers – was
held by her aunt. And, although Cheryl
was mandated to drug rehabilitation and
work training programs after her incarceration,
her history of recidivism made Lori’s
caregiver reluctant to return the girl
to her mother.
The
opening of WPA’s Sarah Powell Huntington
House (SPHH) in 1993 couldn’t have been more serendipitous.
Cheryl was the third woman to move into
the transitional shelter. A former foster
child herself, Cheryl loathed the idea
of someone else raising her daughter.
She longed to have the opportunity to
give Lori the structure and the parental
presence that she herself had lacked
growing up. However, because of her lengthy
drug addiction and frequent prison stays,
Cheryl was unlikely to be given the opportunity
to do that without intervention.
Even
with WPA’s help, the process of
reunification for Cheryl and Lori was
a difficult one. Once Cheryl moved into
a single unit at SPHH, she was able to bring
court proceedings to regain custody of
Lori, a process that eventually took
eight months. She credits the program’s
uniqueness with her eventual success: “The
set-up of Huntington House was central
to my regaining custody of my daughter.
When I went to court, I was able to impress
on the judge the fact that when Lori
was finally allowed to come home with
me, I would have some kind of
supervision… The judge knew that
there was case management on site. They
knew there were rules and regulations
that were enforced. I’m convinced
that they would have never given her
back to me on my own.”
Cheryl found that WPA staff was able
to provide her support when she needed
it the most: “I remember one day,
when I was in court fighting hard for
Lori, I was on the verge of relapse.
It was such a hard time for me. I was
working, had got myself into Huntington
House, and the court kept saying ‘no,
you can’t have her back.’ One
night, I was so close to relapsing, I
didn’t know what to do. So I called
my case manager, and she came and got
me. She literally came out to where I
was and brought me back. That shows you
how Huntington House invests in you on
a personal level.”
Cheryl
did a lot of work to rebuild her life
and her family. But she continued to
need help. Her low wages were not sufficient
to meet the cost of living in New York
City. Huntington House provided
child-care for Lori during the day, allowing
Cheryl to go to work every morning with
peace of mind. At night, she came home
to a close knit community of women who
understood her struggles. Often, this
support was as valuable to Cheryl as
the tangible services provided by Huntington
House staff.
After
spending nearly two years at Huntington
House, Cheryl and Lori moved out into
the community, into the same apartment
building where they reside today. The
initial transition was rocky at times – but
WPA aftercare helped to fill many of
the gaps. WPA helped Cheryl find
reliable childcare in the community.
And, when Cheryl was downsized out of
her job in the mid-1990s, WPA was able
to help prevent Cheryl and Lori from
becoming homeless again.
Today,
Cheryl is an effective advocate for homeless
and disadvantaged women. And, although
she credits WPA with helping to make
her life a success, she’s upset
by the fact that there aren’t more
stories like hers. “Lori and I,
and the other families of Huntington
House, shouldn’t be exceptions
to the rule. You can’t take a woman
out of the prison system and put her
back into society with no skills and
no education and expect her to be able
to survive and navigate the myriad of
systems without having anything as a
buffer. You’re setting that woman
up to fail.”
Cheryl
is convinced that programs like Huntington
House are the answer. “Given the
opportunity, people will do the right
thing,” she maintains. “Their
intentions and what is in their heart
are so different from the elements that
they’re facing coming out of prison.
The deck is stacked against them right
away. What we need to do as a society
is give them an opportunity.”
The
opportunity to be at Huntington House
is not lost on daughter, Lori. Several
of her friends are in the foster care
system; her own mother is a product of
it. “I’ve
seen first hand what happens to kids
who get bounced around from family to
family, and I know how lucky I was that
my mom and I got placed at Huntington
House.”
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More success stories:
Luz’s Story
Claudia’s
Story
