Hi my name is Austin and this is my hope story…

Last year, my wife Jennifer and I lost our apartment. For the next five months, we bounced around from house to house, never knowing where we would be sleeping the next night. We tried to get into local shelters, but found them to always be full. The first time I came into the Emergency Assistance Center (EAC) to meet with the case manager I told her that we just wanted stability for ourselves and our 9 month old child; however, with our income and a previous eviction on our record, we could not get the money together to rent an apartment.

We were also unable to continue staying with family and friends because that was putting them at risk of an eviction for having extra people living in their units. Jennifer and I enrolled in Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas’ housing program. When the case manager met with us, I told her I had taken out two Payday loans to pay for gas and food for the family.
 I was having trouble making the monthly payments due to my limited income.

We were able to get approved for an apartment because of the 6 months of rental assistance we would receive through the housing program. I also applied and was approved for the Kansas Loan Pool Program. I currently have 4 payments left on his loan. Recently, we received our federal tax return and took $2,100 to our landlord to pay ahead three months of rent. This had been a goal we had established before filing our return. We were so proud to tell our case manager that we had succeeded with our plan. We also came up with a plan to save a portion of each paycheck to continue to put toward rent in order to stay ahead and avoid falling into another homeless situation. I have hope that we can keep this up and continue toward our goal of a sustainable life for our family.