The newest guests at the Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter (MATS) are an engaged couple and two children, ages 5 and 13. The couple fell on hard times after pursuing a cross-country move that didn’t go as planned. They returned back to the Monadnock area and tried to live with with family. But that situation became unworkable and they needed to leave immediately but had nowhere to go. Fortunately, MATS was able to help.
The mother of the children (who are from a previous marriage) said MATS is helping her learn to budget and manage her finances, put money away and plan for the future. She is employed in a good stable job and is finally able to save money.
“I have a savings account for the first time in my entire life,” she said.
This enterprising woman was kicked out of her home at age 18 and has been on her own ever since. (She is now approaching 40.) She explained that when she was first starting out, she asked her own mother for help understanding how to use a checkbook and was told “I had to figure it out for myself, you’re going to have to do that, too.”
Susan Howard, program manager at MATS, is helping her obtain Social Security cards and birth certificates for the children, which were lost in the divorce to her children’s father, and she’s incredibly appreciative of that. They are working on her credit report, too, and she said she finally feels empowered.
“I’ve never had any tools to really figure out a good foundation for my life,” she said, adding that the skills she is learning from Howard mean “I’m not a house of cards anymore.”
She said her experience at MATS has been “really good” because she never learned how to “adult.”
Take the credit report, for example. “I am really concerned about my credit report. It’s something that really stresses me and when I get stressed out, I’m a turtle and I’d rather hide and just not deal with it,” she said.
But working with Howard means she has someone to guide her through the difficult work involved in becoming a responsible adult.
“I’m claiming my life back for the first time and it takes a lot of work,” she said.
Our guest says she and her children and partner have been in survival mode for the last four years, and so as her son’s birthday approaches later in August, she really just wants to spend some quality time together near some water.
“My wish is that we have some beautiful weather that everyone’s healthy and we can make some good memories at the beach, or at some water somewhere,” she said, “just like we should be…I won’t take it for granted I will appreciate every moment of it.”
Creating those kind of family memories that are such an important part of a young child’s life can be difficult or impossible for a family facing homelessness. It is a very satisfying feeling for us at MATS to help bring a sense of normalcy to the lives of the children we work with, both in the short term, and, as we help our client and her family transition into permanent housing, in the long term as well.
If you would like to make a donation to MATS, the items most-needed include a car, gift cards, children’s care products like shampoo, body wash, toothpaste, mouthwash etc. and deodorant for teens and adults. There is a donation box at Steele’s Stationary to drop off donations. Gift cards can be mailed to MATS, P.O. Box 3053 in Peterborough, 03458, or dropped into the donation box.
Jenn Runyon is a Monadnock Area Transitional Shelter board member.