Imagine your life changes in an instant. You find yourself scared and alone, a single parent juggling two kids and a full-time job, unsure about how to provide your family with food, clean clothes, and a place to live. What if your efforts aren’t enough? What if you seek help and are turned away at every step?

This is Sarah’s story.

A resident of Everett, MA, Sarah works at an assisted living facility, taking care of those who are unable to care for themselves. She makes $13.63 an hour. In early 2020, Sarah’s husband abandons the family, leaving her to support their two children by herself.

Before she has time to catch her breath, the pandemic hits. With schools going remote, Sarah struggles to find enough hours at her job to pay the bills. In May, Sarah’s rent spikes to over 100% of her monthly income. She loses her home.

At first, Sarah and her children move into a close friend’s living room. It fills their immediate need for shelter, but it cannot last. The apartment is subsidized, and if they are discovered, all of them — including Sarah’s friend — will face eviction.

Sarah faces two immediate options: try to find a homeless shelter or live in her car and risk being separated for negligence. After contacting several agencies, Sarah is eventually referred to Women’s Lunch Place. One day later, on Christmas Eve, her case is taken over by a WLP Advocate. This is what unfolds:

WLP immediately helps Sarah apply for placement in an Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter.
Sarah is denied EA shelter because her income is too high. (Three people living on roughly $26,000 per year are technically above the threshold for emergency placement.)
Despite WLP’s efforts, Sarah is also denied at family shelters due to COVID overcrowding.
Sarah qualifies for a separate, non-EA shelter, but because she lost her housing in Everett, and the shelter is for Boston residents only, she is again denied temporary housing.

With no place to go, WLP checks Sarah and her children into a hotel. Then, WLP seeks outside help by connecting Sarah a lawyer at Holland & Knight LLP, who agrees to work on the case pro-bono.

So that the lawyer can file for the appeal, Sarah applies and is denied EA shelter once again.
After a weeklong legal process, she is approved for temporary EA shelter.
Sarah and WLP continue to work on finding a more permanent solution, but she is repeatedly denied from subsidized properties due to her ex-husband decimating her credit.
Following months of work, hundreds of phone calls, and help from Sarah’s employer, Peabody Properties, she is finally approved for a subsidized apartment. On February 10th, she gets the keys and her family moves in.

WLP sees Sarah’s success story as one that is built on a foundation of failures. It is an all-too-common example of the struggles that many women face while simply trying to find a place to live. If navigating systemic oppression, isolation, and bureaucracy isn’t complicated enough, consider that most of WLP’s guests have complex mental health issues that they must manage as well.

In her new apartment, Sarah will still face the obstacles that rendered her homeless in the first place. Women’s Lunch Place will not turn away from her struggle. We will continue to work with Sarah to maximize her income, improve her credit score, and stabilize her situation.

As we look toward the Spring and search for relief, healing, and renewal, the damage in the wake of the pandemic is just starting to be realized. At WLP, we will continue to stand side-by-side with women who are facing many of the injustices that have arisen in the aftermath of this past year.

In many ways, our work has just begun.

Please support Women’s Lunch Place so that women like Sarah will always have a place where they can find consistent and dedicated support, kindness, and dignity.

With gratitude,

Jennifer Hanlon Wigon
Executive Director
Women’s Lunch Place

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This is Sarah's Story: Spring Appeal 2021