• Left on the Side of the Road

    Ashley remembers the time she resorted to asking strangers for money. She hadn’t eaten in days, she was pregnant, and she and her husband, Nelson, were out of options. But instead of spare change, what she received from one man was a cup of urine thrown in her face as he yelled, “Get a job!”

    The act of cruelty broke her heart and left her sobbing with humiliation. The man didn’t know Ashley was unable to work because of spine problems and back surgery that ended her path to becoming a medical assistant just weeks before her scheduled board exams.

    The man didn’t know Nelson had quit working to take care of her, and their parents weren’t willing to support them. In fact, while they were living with Nelson’s parents after Ashley’s surgery, Nelson’s dad decided it was time for them to leave, and he dropped them off by the side of a road in Des Moines. Just like that, they were homeless.

    Neither of them ever thought they would end up with no place to stay. Nelson grew up in a fairly stable family. He learned about fishing, the outdoors and work ethic from his dad.Things were good when he was young. In high school he showed talent playing football, and he felt confident and optimistic about his future.

    Ashley was a gifted athlete who swam in the Junior Olympics and set a home run record on her Hoover High School softball team. She graduated in the top 7% of her class and started college as a triple major in psychology, sociology and English literature.

    “I had a full life going for me, and I didn’t expect to be homeless. I never did. It’s not a choice I made,” she says.

    It often takes just one or two tragic events to change the entire course of people’s lives and leave them on the streets. For Ashley, it was the trauma of sexual assault while she was at college that caused her to drop out and pursue a different career path, only to have her dreams shattered again by debilitating spinal disease.

    For Nelson, it was when his dad had a near-fatal aortic aneurysm and his mom became addicted to prescription meds after gastric bypass surgery. Suddenly, the stability was gone. Nelson dropped out of school and got involved with drugs: “I thought selling was the right thing to do to take care of my family.”

    When they became homeless, they slept outside with little protection, all while Ashley was still recovering from back surgery. When they found a homeless shelter, the conditions were cramped and crowded with no way to leave and still keep their spot. Someone told them about Joppa, and they finally found the help they needed to start surviving.

    “They were our saving grace,” says Ashley. “They gave us tents, clothes, food, clean water, heat—we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”

    Watch Ashley and Nelson tell the rest of their story.

  • Contribute
 
WordPress SEO fine-tune by Meta SEO Pack from Poradnik Webmastera