Alicia’s Story
Virginia
Alicia opened up her door one morning to find an eviction notice on it. She froze. Her three young children clambered around her, geared up in backpacks and lunch boxes. She tried not to show her panic as she stuffed the paper in her purse and drove them to school. This can’t be happening.
Earlier that morning, she had been standing in her kitchen savoring a last sip of coffee, overwhelmed with gratitude for her life. She could hear her children waking up down the hall and envisioned the day ahead: school dropoffs, her own work as a teacher, then homework for her master’s class after bedtime routines. Juggling all of it was hard but so rewarding.
But now that life was about to come crumbling down.
Alicia rested her hands on her steering wheel, remembering the strange sounds the car had started making a few weeks ago. The next thing she knew, she was handed a huge mechanic bill. She needed the car—it was how her girls got to school and how she got to work. There wasn't reliable public transportation and she didn't have any family who could help.
Alicia had hoped her landlord wouldn't mind if she waited for the next paycheck to pay rent, but clearly he did. She felt tears of fury rise in her: All it took was one unexpected expense, one little hiccup, and her whole life—and the lives of her daughters—were in jeopardy.
As Alicia worked to compose herself, an alarm on her phone reminded her of one more activity in her busy day: a meeting with her Avail advocate that afternoon.
Avail had been the turning point for Alicia in so many ways. Three years before, she had walked into the office as a single mother of one, pregnant again, with no vision of how she’d be able to handle this. Her partner and family kept her at arm's length, and she’d had to accept that she would be the only one caring for herself or her children. She had felt the same way then: This can’t be happening.
But then her advocates at Avail had ushered her into a world of support, from free pregnancy and birth classes and essential baby supplies to emotional and practical advice as she navigated parenting by herself. Even when she moved to Virginia in the middle of her pregnancy, the support didn't let up. She still met regularly with her advocate on Zoom and received all the resources that Avail had offered her in New York.
So when Alicia told her advocate about the eviction notice and the surprise bill for her car, and her advocate immediately found a grant that would pay her rent, Alicia found herself laughing for the first time that day. She shouldn’t have been surprised.
Avail was still here for her, all these years later. She'd known that, back when she had first come in, pregnant and overwhelmed. Her advocates had promised her: You don't have to do this alone. Not ever. She had trusted them, and it had given her the courage she needed to keep going.
Now they had proven they meant what they said, again. Alicia felt a surge of courage. She would get this Master's degree, she would get a better job, and she would keep her kids in schools where they were thriving.
Two days later, she received another notice—this time, it said that her landlord had received the payment and wouldn’t evict her. She laid the letter on the counter with a sigh. Then she turned to her daughters, busy playing in the living room.
“Okay! Who wants to play a game with Mommy before baths?”