Lori grew up in Atlanta and moved north when she was nineteen. She settled near Keene, married, and owned a house. Then came a divorce, a move to Springfield, kidney stones, and a prescription for the pain.
“Everything just kind of fell apart right there,” she said.
That was 2012. She would not have a place of her own again for more than a decade.
Seth was living in Springfield too, in and out of housing, staying with friends, working through his own substance use. They met on a transport bus. Lori got sober in rehab the week the pandemic hit the news, and Seth got sober after that. They got married.
By then Lori had moved to the Upper Valley and was living in a motel, getting by on Social Security. She stayed in motels for three years.
The Haven was already part of her routine before she ever asked for housing. Volunteers brought groceries to her room. When she and Seth needed a way to cook, the Haven found them an electric frying pan, and forks and spoons to go with it.
Lori and Seth were among the first households accepted into A Way Home, a permanent supportive housing program. Their Service Coordinator through the Haven was Sonya.
Lori had been through housing applications before and expected another one.
“She came to me, put her hand on mine, and said, I’m putting you in housing, you’re going to be in housing for sure,” Lori said. “This is the first time I ever met her, and I had not heard that from any other worker. It was always just fill this application and, you know, we’ll see what they say.”
What followed was months of paperwork, phone calls, and appointments. Sonya sat with Lori and worked through the forms with her. She arranged rides to the doctor and to the store.
“It’s easier to ask what they didn’t do,” Lori said, “because they really did so much.”
Seth watched Sonya carry a full caseload and still make them feel like the only people she worked with.
“She made you feel like you mattered,” he said, “and that your situation was important and unique.”
When the apartment came through, Lori could not take it in.
“It was just surreal. I felt like I was on a cloud,” she said. “It was almost like, I don’t deserve this. I could not let myself be happy at first.”
They moved in with nothing. No furniture, no dishes. They put the apartment together one piece at a time. The thing that finally made it feel like theirs was a new bed.
“Not only do we have a home,” Lori said, “but we can afford a new bed.”
Housing alone would not have gotten them there. Years without an address had damaged both their credit scores, and landlords with twenty applications in hand could take the strongest ones.
“We tried to get an apartment on our own and we would get denied,” Lori said.
Inside the program, they rebuilt. They paid rent on time every month. Within the first year they were off food benefits. Then they earned too much for their housing subsidy. Lori gave up her Social Security because she feels ready to work again. Seth is employed, and they have been paying full rent for around a year. A cat named Carl Carlton, adopted as a kitten when they first got housed, has the run of the place.
Ask Lori what stability means and she answers in plain terms. Bills paid. Food in the house. Being able to replace a pair of boots when they wear out. Not sweating out a bill they forgot about.
“We’re happy, we’re independent,” she said. “We feel wealthy.”
