After two years of living on the streets, Tanisha Flournoy says she was tired.
She had been out of prison over ten years and was working and seemingly getting her life back on track. So when she and her boyfriend found themselves homeless, it was unexpected.
“We were both working. We were staying with his family,” she said. “And they kind of just put us out in the middle of the night after we got home from work. So we ended up living in our car and were just kind of like traveling back and forth between Missouri and Kansas, because he’s from Missouri, but, you know, I have people in Kansas.”
Then, one day their car broke down, and they had nowhere to turn — and nowhere to live. In the beginning, they found an outdoor storage unit where they’d stay when it wasn’t too cold.
“It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t like a regular storage unit with concrete walls,” she said. “It was boards everywhere and dirt and rats in there. It was crazy. We were there for a year before somebody came and said something to us.” Then she said, they found an abandoned Victorian-style house, and after that, an abandoned apartment building. But, ultimately, they got removed from all of those spaces.
“That’s when I kind of just had enough,” she said. Fortunately, for Tanisha, she happened to be in the right place at the right time when representatives from a new city program stopped by and encouraged her to take an assessment and get into a new program designed to match people with services available in the city to help with housing and other emergency assistance needs.
Journey to New Life was Tanisha’s match.
“I got a call maybe two or three days later, and I met up with Journey to New Life,” she said. “And they told me about the program, and I went in and talked to them, and from there, they’ve been a big help. It’s been amazing working with Journey to New Life.”
You know being a felon, you wouldn’t think that there’d be some help out there for you after getting in trouble like that. I think it’s kind of crazy, but I think it’s awesome.
— Tanisha Flournoy
Thanks to the short-term grant from the city, Journey to New Life was able to help Tanisha get housed. They also provided support and helped her navigate her mother’s illness that ultimately resulted in her mother’s passing. Tanisha continues to receive help at Journey to New Life, including hygiene products, clothing, food and other emergency assistance when she needs it.
And, for that, she is so grateful. She says that if it wasn’t for Journey to New Life, “I think I’d probably still be in the street honestly.”
Instead, Tanisha is stably housed. She’s working on re-connecting with her children who range in age from 18 to 9. And she’s looking forward to the future, hoping she can get the training she needs to become a CNA.
“I like helping people.,” she said. “My mom and my grandma both were CNA and RNAs. So I’ve seen them their whole life doing it, and I like helping people.”
The program that helped Tanisha has run its course, but you can still help Journey to New Life provide these valuable housing and emergency assistance services.
