Like many of the clients who come to
WPA, Claudia is no stranger to adversity.
When she was just nine years old – the
age when most girls are spending their
afternoons skipping rope – Claudia
was already working part-time to help
support her family. By the time she was
fourteen, she was married to a man ten
years her senior. At twenty, Claudia
was a single mother with four children.
After moving back to New York in her
mid-twenties, Claudia met a man named
Isaac and had five more children. Throughout
much of her adult life she held steady
employment as a school crossing guard;
she and Isaac split the responsibility
of caring for the nine children. The
couple didn’t have a lot, but they
managed to make enough money to get by.
However, when Claudia fell ill in her
early fifties and was unable to work,
the family’s delicate financial
balance toppled. One by one, her children
grew up and moved out of the house. After
spending her whole life taking care of
other people, Claudia found herself increasingly
alone – and she turned to alcohol
to help fill the void.
Like so many of the women we serve,
Claudia placed herself in vulnerable
positions in an effort to support herself
and her addiction. She resorted to “steering” (acting
as a go-between for drug dealers and prospective buyers) to get money for
alcohol. Claudia’s choices eventually led to her arrest and a brief
stay at Rikers Island; she lost her apartment and was forced to enter the
shelter system upon her release. It was there that Claudia first learned
about WPA from an outreach presentation conducted by agency staff. She remembers
that day as being “the turning point” in her life.
Claudia soon became a fixture at WPA’s
Reentry Services Center. Claudia’s
first priority was to get herself out
of the shelter system and reunite with
Isaac, who was living in a Single Room
Occupancy (SRO) in Manhattan. Claudia
worked with her case manager to secure
an apartment in the same building and
fill it with starter furnishing. From
time to time, when money was tight, Claudia
was able to pick up some groceries from
WPA’s food pantry.
Her housing secured, Claudia was free
to work toward her ultimate goal: a college
degree. She enrolled in computer workshops
through WPA’s Steps To Independence
(STI) program and learned valuable word
processing and Internet skills. (She
continues to impress her children with
her frequent e-mail messages!) By the
time Claudia completed her school applications – with
the help of WPA staff – she was
confident that she was prepared to be
a college freshman.
Claudia is now enrolled as a communications
major at the College of New Rochelle.
At 61, she is the first person in her
family to ever enroll in college. More
importantly, she’s proud of herself
and the positive influence she is having
on her family: “I want my children
to know that their mother is out there
doing something. If they see that I can
go to college, they’ll believe
that they can do it too.”
As a grandmother of 27 and a great-grandmother
to 11, Claudia might not fit most people’s
conception of a formerly incarcerated
woman. Yet her story is echoed by the
experience of a majority of WPA’s
clients: “I
did the alcohol. I did run around the
streets for everybody else. I did things
trying to help other people. But now
I’ve
realized that I have to stop and take
care of myself.”
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More success stories:
Luz’s Story
Cheryl’s
Story
