Homelessness: Final Journey Statement
Experiencing homelessness and trauma...
As a mature woman later in life is just so incomprehensible; however, during your time with Nisa Homes, the team there was able to support you to achieve many things that you were afraid were impossible and now you feel confident enough to have a second chance and start a new life. You have become financially independent and have been successful in finding a new job. Your caseworker was able to help you with learning financial management skills as well.
Your Supportive Counsellor was able to teach you many strategies to become your own wellness expert, with many groups and 1:1 sessions available to you in the home whenever you felt it was time to talk with someone. Your caseworker was able to assist you in your search for your own accommodation and even helped you source and locate everything that you would need to start again in your new home.
You also applied to National Zakat Foundation to receive temporary financial assistance with rent and food in preparation for your move out. They also helped you connect to many local social support groups and interest-based groups so that you could make good friends. Nisa Homes offered to continue to support you for up to 6 months after you moved into your own place, just to ensure that you have everything you need and to offer you additional financial supports like gift cards from time to time.
Approximately 16% of the women who seek help from Nisa Homes are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
My husband had left my daughter and I some year ago and I was barely making ends meet. When I found this job in a big city, I thought things would finally change! Unfortunately, when I arrived, the job was not what I expected, and the environment was extremely inappropriate with a lot of both sexual and racial harassment and so I had to leave.
However, soon the little savings I had ran out and we were evicted from our apartment. I didn’t know what to do and just thought I would rest in my car for a couple of hours while I made some calls to try to figure something out. Those couple of hours became a night which then became a week and I lost hope. Finally, we were informed that there was space at Nisa Homes, and we jumped at the opportunity.
Alhamdulillah, I did not know just how much I appreciated the comfort of a warm bed, subhanAllah it was all I needed. Within a couple of weeks, I was able to land an even better job, and a couple of weeks after that, we were heading out of Nisa Homes and into our own apartment alhamdulilah! But I couldn’t have done this without the warm embrace of Nisa Homes or the support and guidance the workers there provided me."
