ECS St. Barnabas Mission serves homeless women and their children, providing not only shelter but case management and related services to address the root causes of homelessness.
When Tiffany had her third child, she knew it was time to make a change in her life. She had been living with her mother for several years, but deteriorating physical conditions of the house and an overcrowded, unstable home environment had reached a tipping point. With nowhere else to go, Tiffany entered the homeless shelter system and found her way to ECS St. Barnabas Mission.
As a teenager, she had briefly stayed in a shelter when the aunt she was living with lost her home. The experience had been demoralizing. ECS St. Barnabas was different. There were after- school activities for the children, holiday events and health and parenting programs for the moms.
“It makes a big difference. At most shelters I’ve heard about, there’s nothing to do, then it makes you depressed and frustrated. St. Barnabas made it so that if you didn’t have anything to do outside of the shelter, they had things to do in the shelter,” Tiffany said.
Tiffany’s story is an all too familiar one for single moms trying to hold on. She held several jobs over the years, including a food-service position that she really loved. However, those jobs were in the suburbs which made commuting without a car difficult. She would hold on to a job until her child care arrangements fell through and have to start all over. She enrolled in college once, but the high costs and lack of support at the for-profit institution were a challenge.
When Tiffany came to ECS St. Barnabas, her case manager helped her outline her goals. Although she hit some road blocks along the way, the multi-service approach at the Mission eventually helped Tiffany succeed.
“I learned to have patience. As you get older, you start to realize what’s important in life. I’ve learned to put my children first instead of being selfish,” Tiffany said. “I want to be able to go to school, overcome the fear of failure.”
With assistance from ECS, Tiffany applied to several housing programs and was accepted to ACHIEVEability, a local program that provides affordable housing to parents who are working and enrolled in college. The program offers job placement, tutoring and other case management services to support clients in meeting these rigorous requirements.
Today, Tiffany is living in a clean, safe house in West Philadelphia and has just started a job working with special needs children and adults. She plans to study at Community College of Philadelphia for her first two years of nursing school before transferring to a four-year school. Her daughter is receiving treatment for developmental concerns identified by the ECS St. Barnabas Butterfly preschool.
“ECS helped me with my goals for me and my children,” Tiffany said. “Today, I have the housing, the job and an education plan. Just starting is something that I feel has helped me overcome that fear of failure. I think I can do it. I know I can do it.”
Claris, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, came here to build a better life for her children. Instead, she lost her son to the lifestyle of the streets. She put off her educational goals and neglected her health, working long hours on a factory floor. Then she had to leave her job for family reasons.