“We’re Homeless Because Life Kicked Us in the Buns”

Sam used to sleep with a baseball bat by her bed and a knife in her pocket. Not out of paranoia, but survival. Even after leaving her abusive ex-husband, the fear didn’t just disappear. Every noise, every shadow, every memory lingered. “There were times I genuinely thought I was going to die,” she says. “So I started planning—how I’d leave, where I’d go, what I’d need to keep my kids safe.” That kind of fear doesn’t just fade. But you wouldn’t know any of this by looking at her. 

At first glance, Sam doesn’t look like someone homeless. That’s what people often say when she opens up about her story. But homelessness doesn’t wear one face. It doesn't always look like tents on the sidewalk or people sleeping under bridges. Sometimes, it looks like a woman who works in billing, loves math and animals, and is doing everything she can to hold her family together.

Sam is a mother of two. She’s been homeless twice. The first time, she left her abusive husband in Georgia and moved to Pennsylvania, hoping to live with her parents. But the home she thought might be a haven turned out to be another unsafe place, leaving her and her children with nowhere to go.

The second time was a cruel chain reaction. When they finally left their first shelter and moved into a house, it seemed like a new chapter, until they realized there had been mold growing throughout the house since before they moved in. Both her kids were hospitalized with pneumonia. She sent pictures, ran mold tests, and begged for help. But the system failed her. Again. Every day, she would take off work to take her kids to the hospital. Soon, she lost her daycare provider. Then, without childcare, she lost her job. Her landlord provided her with no help, simply telling her she could end her lease early if she wanted to because of the mold. She had just lost her job, there was no way she could afford a new place.

They ended up sleeping in her car; two kids, two cats, a 55-pound dog, and Sam, all sleeping in a tiny Nissan in the middle of winter. A church helped pay for a few nights in a hotel. Then came The Lighthouse.

Behind these logistics is a lifetime of trauma. Sam grew up in a household filled with yelling, throwing, and fear. “We were the household that you heard yelling down the street,” she says. Love was absent, replaced by control. There were no lessons in finance, no examples of healthy relationships. When she married young, it wasn’t just love—it was a learned pattern.

The abuse from her ex-husband wasn't just physical—it was psychological, emotional, verbal, and eventually directed at her children. That was the final straw. “Seeing the way he treated my kids was what made me leave,” she says. Sam checked herself into inpatient care to start healing and to stop leaning on drugs to numb the pain. “It was life-changing,” she says, though sobriety was a journey that took time. Faith and the community at The Lighthouse eventually helped her find stability.

Now, she’s working, sober, and healing. But her fears haven’t disappeared. She worries about raising her kids in an area where poverty leads to stress, abuse, gangs, and cycles that repeat across generations. “But I constantly talk to my kids,” she says. “We talk about meeting pain with kindness.”

Even shelters aren’t always a sanctuary. “There’s a lot of pain here,” Sam admits. She tries to stay grounded in her values while surrounded by others who are still fighting their own battles. What keeps her going is her children—and her determination to give them the life she never had.

Sam is also deeply aware of how her race affects the way she’s treated as a homeless person. “I’m white,” she says, “and I know that people have responded more kindly to me because of it.” Her children are mixed, and they’ve even experienced judgment from different sides. “I’ve seen other women—women of color—be treated completely differently for doing the same things I do,” she explains. “There’s a bias. If you don’t look a certain way, if you ‘look homeless,’ people treat you like you're dirty or dangerous.” It’s something she finds heartbreaking and frustrating—how appearance and race can affect not only how people perceive you, but whether they choose to help.

Sam isn’t afraid to speak truth to power. She believes reform starts at the roots: education, access to mental health care, financial literacy, affordable housing, and compassion.

She’s learned to breathe through triggers. To let go of shame. To stop believing the lie that homelessness is a personal failure. “You can’t judge me for something God is guiding me through,” she says.

If she could leave people with one message, it would be this:

“No matter what you’re going through, you’re not alone. There’s someone out there who’s probably going through the same thing. And you’re doing your best. This moment will pass.”