Linda, Isa, Sami and Joel’s Story

As the back-to-school season descended this past month, Linda was among the millions of New Yorkers readjusting their schedules to greet the morning a little bit earlier with the fun, stress and chaos of juggling breakfast, last minute homework and hustling children out the door to daycare and school before the workday’s start. For Linda, the adjustment was punctuated by the school day being her workday. As a part-time teaching assistant, Linda is one of the anchors in our communities to whom we entrust our children before running off to catch a subway or bus to work.

This school year is the beginning of an exciting and nerve-wracking chapter for Isa, who has entered the 8^th grade and is already talking about high school options. For Sami, it marks the big adventure of the first grade, and for weeks, he has been giddily asking if he will have new friends. Two-year old Joel has another year of daycare. Despite the earlier start to her day, Linda was also happy to welcome September because she is back doing the work she loves – and she is being paid again. Typically, the summer months are the most challenging as Linda does not get paid and the family must survive on SNAP (food stamps) and the skeletal cash assistance benefit they receive.

Linda is feeling particularly energized this fall because she knows that at the end of every day a safe home awaits the family. Last year was different when she spent every day terrified that they were going to lose that home. There were many nights when sleep was obliterated by perpetual anxiety about what would happen if they were evicted and forced to live in a shelter far from everyone they knew. She worried that the children’s commutes would be impossible to align and, at best, they would be faced with lateness and absences that would derail their education. Linda also feared that losing their home would cause irreparable emotional damage to the children, and she was feeling crushed by how quickly the family’s world had unraveled.

It had only been a couple of years since the family had moved into this, then, happy home. Her partner, Jay, was working as a truck driver and his income paid most of the rent; Linda contributed what she could from her teaching assistant wages. They considered themselves among the lucky ones, as Jay had not lost work during the Covid years when so many relatives and friends had, and Linda and Sami had survived months of living at the hospital after Sami was born late preterm and had to spend an extended period in the NICU.

One year later, as the couple was expecting their third child, Jay arrived home one day and announced that he was leaving. In shock and heavily pregnant, Linda did not have the time or support to make sense of, or even try to grieve, this loss and abandonment. As Jay stopped paying the $2,200 monthly rent and household bills and was not contributing child support, Linda became more of a rock for their children. She surrounded Isa and Sami with love and reassurance and suppressed her own pain as she became consumed with the practicalities of trying to safeguard their home. Try though she did to cut costs, she was unable to make a significant dent in the bills with her monthly $1,500 earnings, and the arrears started to accumulate. She knew their economic horizon was even bleaker: the imminency of the new baby meant she was facing a period of leave when her monthly income would drop to $200. At the same time, her mother, who had been in remission, was diagnosed with breast cancer again and also needed support. Linda’s heartbreak and anguish over the next several months were only momentarily vanquished by the arrival of baby Joel. Linda felt thankful that Joel was born healthy and full of energy, and Isa and Sami delighted in their new brother. Linda smiled as she watched the three children playing together and determined that she would keep them all safe.

Within a couple of months however, Linda’s schedule was punishing. The only daycare she could find was more than an hour away, and by the time she collected Sami from school and made the round trip to pick up Joel and stop by her mom’s to gather Isa (who went there after school to do homework), it was late and there was barely enough time to eat, bathe and get to bed for a few hours before getting up at 6 am to start the churn all over again. As can often happen in periods of high stress, Linda’s health began to deteriorate, and soon she was recovering from an ulcer procedure while her mom and sister pitched in as best they could to take care of the children. All the while, the arrears kept mounting. Despite Linda’s attempts to pay off little bits here and there, she felt like she was walking up an accelerating down escalator. The letters threatening eviction started arriving in the summer of 2023, and soon thereafter, Linda found herself in housing court. Her arrears now exceeded $30K and with the year’s end rolling in, she feared her children would be spending the holidays in a homeless shelter. She felt trapped and defeated.

Until, without knowing it, you entered her story.

In court, Linda was assigned an attorney who gave her a phone number and a name: The Partnership To End Homelessness. The next day, Linda was in an office talking to members of the organization’s Housing & Crisis team and learning about the NYC Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (FHEPS) and other benefits that she never knew her family was eligible to receive. She felt a rush of hope when she discovered that FHEPS was designed to ensure families just like hers can afford their homes by assisting with arrears and a portion of her rent moving forward. Over a series of months, The Partnership team supported her to navigate the paperwork and applications, a process that can often feel like a byzantine maze when families are under stress, scared and have not previously accessed support systems. Working closely with the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA), the court and her attorney, The Partnership team put a solid foundation under the family. Through the FHEPS program, the City paid a majority of the arrears and The Partnership was able to cover the remainder with funding from private donors, like you. The FHEPS program also guarantees the family’s housing stability moving forward, as it is now subsidizing their rent in line with Linda’s earnings.

Being up to date on her rent for the first time in a few years, Linda felt a sense of relief and strength and began accessing more of The Partnership’s services, first to find Joel a daycare much closer to home, which allowed her to take on more hours at work and then to engage in The Partnership’s therapeutic services which have assisted her to regain her confidence and footing. She no longer feels guilty about the child support process the City initiated against Jay, and she has made a long-term financial stability plan. Through the early months of 2025, she put away a little bit of money every pay period, ensuring that she has enough money heading into the summer months to keep affording the basics for her children.

Today, she is thrilled to be back in the classroom where she enjoys working with the students and the entire school community, and she feels free to dream again: the goal she has put on hold for years, to go back to school herself so she can become a full-time teacher, has been at the forefront of her mind in recent weeks. In the near term, she is focused on achieving Isa’s goal this year: it brings tears to her eyes when she talks about Isa having repeatedly asked for a desk. Isa loves school, she recently joined the school choir and she likes to have a quiet corner away from her brothers to do her homework. This fall, Linda is quietly saving a little bit extra every pay period (on top of her ongoing summer months fund) as she is determined to get Isa that desk by the year-end holidays.