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“Brighter Day” On Its Way For FPMC Graduate
With a history that includes Crohn’s Disease, homelessness, addiction to pain killers and losing her parents before she turned 40, Doreen, a recent graduate of the FPMC program, has enough painful material to write a memoir.
Instead, she’s focusing on raising her children, working full-time as a clerk whose manager says she’s “amazing with customers,” and generally “hoping for a brighter day.”
Doreen found Family Promise through social services, something that she never
imagined she’d be forced to do. After losing a full-time job at Home Depot, she
expected to be back at work soon. She moved her family into a friend’s rental in
Hazlet to share expenses. When the friend moved out, leaving her with a rent
payment she couldn’t afford by herself, the landlord said she wasn’t responsible for a lease she hadn’t signed. Another kind friend helped the family for a few months, but when work didn’t materialize, Doreen faced homelessness.
“I needed to stay strong. My kids depend on me. But inside I felt alone and afraid. It was scary--there was no work anywhere,” she said.
Turning to Family Promise was wrenching, Doreen said, but she’d been through worse. At 23, she’d had her colon removed because she could not keep food down. Her Crohn’s  has been under
control since, but six years of being sick weakened her teeth.
The hardest thing about the FPMC program, she says today, was its toll on her children, who were separated from their friends and had difficulty pursuing the Pop Warner sports they’re active in. However, one night her daughter was granted an exception to the overnight rule at the shelter so she could attend a competition in Trenton.
“I was so glad she didn’t have to miss that,” Doreen said. “It was so important to her.”
In her journey, Doreen’s been astounded at how often strangers and people she thought barely knew them have
extended themselves for her family. A benefactor in Keyport offered her a temporary apartment. Her kids’ Pop
Warner coaches went out of their way to be supportive. The principal at their school considered them residents although they’d moved in and out of town.
Keyport, Doreen’s home for most of her life, has been a true community. As she buys coffee at Dunkin Donuts, she’s greeted by name by the clerk, and later by two customers passing through, including her supervisor.
When she left the program earlier this year, Doreen got nervous when at the last minute she didn’t get the job she thought she had. Although FPMC helps with the security deposit and first month’s rent, she feared running out of money. But her counselor at Family Pride (the after-care support program for FPMC) told her not to worry.
“I was a little skeptical. What if I had to go back into the program?” she remembers. Family Pride recommended her to Family Dollar and she secured a full-time position that she holds today.
One of her fondest memories from the program was the two days over Christmas that her family spent at the Ocean Place hotel in Long Branch, which donates rooms to FPMC’s families every year. Her children loved swimming in the heated pool.
To help others, Doreen agreed to share her struggles. For her honesty and courage we thank her. Doreen is FPMC.
Nine Years: Jorge’s Story
On a snowy December night six years ago construction worker Jorge Bosa emerged from a restaurant with his girlfriend and saw a homeless man lying on a Jersey City street, wearing only pants and a sleeveless undershirt. Most people would avert their eyes, but Jorge couldn’t just look away.
He had been there himself.
 When he was 18, his father had kicked him out of the house for coming home late too many times. Jorge was a high school dropout working two jobs at the Woodbridge Center while attending night school. He’d left the house that night with two duffel bags that his father had packed for him.
Jorge’s family life in Jersey City was not ideal. His parents had split, his stepmother beat him when she was drinking, and his two older brothers had joined Puerto Rican gangs and been incarcerated. His teenage sister was pregnant. His mother was in a gang, so he lived with his father.
I think my parents just stopped caring. They were waiting for me to leave.
With nowhere to go, one of Jorge’s options was to join a gang. “I don’t really like gangs” he says. “I saw the consequences with my brothers.”
He lived outside for two weeks. His bedroom was a concrete construction tunnel in Carteret where he set up two lawn chairs with cushions for a bed and burned paper in a tin garbage can for heat. It snowed and he became ill. But he didn’t want to involve his mother.
“She had her own problems. I was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell anyone.”
Eventually an old friend took him on a road trip to Alabama, then he did move in with his mom. He found a lucrative construction job restoring an historical building and was grateful. So when he saw the homeless man, he saw only his suffering. It didn’t matter that he was “probably a drug addict.” He thought, “That guy could die.” He gave him his coat, a $300 North Face jacket.
“Things were going great for me. I thought I could just get another one.”
Then his restoration job ended and all he could find was minimum wage work. His girlfriend Sylvia became pregnant and they left for Pennsylvania, thinking life would be easier there.
For three years that was true. Jorge found a job as a chemical technician in Bethlehem and Sylvia took medical coding courses. Although he had to wear a hazmat suit because of the dangerous chemicals he handled, he thought it was a great job. He could cover all his bills with half his monthly pay. It looked like they were on the road to their dream of a house to raise their family in together. Their son, then their daughter, was born.
Then the Great Recession hit, tearing through lives like a tornado and leaving those already on the edge struggling not to fall off. Jorge’s brother died suddenly of a drug-related heart attack at age 32. A month later Jorge was laid off again. Sylvia put her medical billing studies on hold because the jobs had evaporated. Jorge was devastated.
“I went through such a big depression. I couldn’t believe that my brother was gone. On the job I worked my butt off, was on time every day, I even recruited for them. It was my home away from home and that was gone, too.”
They fell behind in the rent and other landlords didn’t want a tenant who was collecting unemployment. They returned to N.J. to stay with family. Sylvia found full-time work as an adminis-trative assistant and Jorge began studying for his GED, hoping to enter a criminal justice program.
Things got too difficult at his dad’s house with two toddlers so they moved again. They’ve moved more times than Jorge and Sylvia can remember. This time, all they found was a residence hotel with no kitchen that drained their savings. Jorge still didn’t have a job –“I was competing with people who had college degrees and I hadn’t even finished high school”-- and their bills mounted.
Under the stress, the couple separated. Jorge was pulled over and arrested because a criminal had stolen his license and his identity. He spent a miserable night in jail and the legal mess is still costing him time and money. He can’t get his license back until he clears up a rash of tickets in his name. After they reconciled, they found Family Promise of Monmouth County.
“We’re not lazy, we like working. But we felt stuck, like we had no options.”
Most shelters they contacted wouldn’t accept men, but FPMC was different. The young couple finally got a chance to build some savings, received career guidance and help with financial management.
It was a way back.
 “We knew we were in good hands,” Jorge says today. “Everywhere we went there was somebody special. They cooked for us. They were good with the children and they gave us hugs. They had good advice. I started eating better, feeling better. The kids were happy to have other children to play with. Shanna helped us with our goals. We came there feeling we had no resources. We got so many options we never knew about. They directed us to the right places.”
Jorge doesn’t blame anyone but himself for his troubles. “It’s not my family’s fault. I’m smart enough to go to college.”
The family rents a small apartment in Keansburg where Sylvia works days in Hazlet and Jorge takes general studies classes at Brookdale. Their kids take the bus to school. They hope to buy a house some day and Sylvia wants to get a business degree. Jorge plans to enter the police academy in Asbury Park. He talks about how important it is for him to keep teens from suicide and give them options to drugs and gangs. People tell him he’ll be a terrific police officer. He has a way with people and a big heart. Mostly, he longs for stability after everything he’s been through.
“I want to have peace of mind. I’m tired of moving around.”
Jorge just celebrated his 27th birthday.
In hopes of helping others like himself, Jorge generously agreed to tell his story publicly. For his courage, honesty and perseverance we thank him. He is why the organization was created in the first place, to be a temporary home for families with no place to go. Jorge is Family Promise of Monmouth County.
Reprinted from Fall 2010, Family Matters, The newsletter of Family Promise of Monmouth County
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