Success story: Goodbye drugs, hello stability
Angella Peck has made a monster comeback.
Less than a year ago, the 38-year-old was living in a Northern Minnesota domestic violence shelter with her two kids – while pregnant with another.
“I was having labor pains, constantly, for six weeks,” Angella said. “It was really hard.”
Even harder: She was still living at the shelter when she gave birth, and then moved to another shelter when her baby boy was just three weeks old.
“My anxiety was off the charts,” Angella said.
Her other kids are ages 8 and 16. Together, the family has spent years bouncing between shelters and temporary homes in Minnesota, Texas and Arkansas – a vagabond lifestyle nourished by Angella’s mental disabilities, drug addiction and poor taste in men.
Thankfully, Angella is a different person today. She is sober, stable, upbeat, and refuses to associate with people who are bad influences.
Much of her comeback has been made possible by Salvation Army housing programs. In September, she moved into a Salvation Army-supported town home in the northern Twin Cities suburbs.
The Salvation Army partners with the government and affordable housing developers, including Duffy Development Co., to provide case management and support services for dozens of formerly homeless families living in apartments and town homes across the Twin Cities.
“It’s an incredible feeling having our own place,” Angella said. “Amazing.”
Amazing indeed, especially considering all that she and her kids have overcome.
Kicking addiction
Angella has been battling drug addiction ever since she was a teenager growing up in Rush City, Minn.
“The longest I ever was sober was five years, but I was just dry – it’s a lot different when you’re being forced to be sober,” she said.
Angella hit bottom in 2014 while living in Arkansas. She and her kids had moved there from Texas to escape a domestic violence situation, spending almost five months living in a shabby trailer.
“It was the only place I could afford with my disability payments,” said Angella, who lives with bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
Living in the trailer proved to be an abysmal environment.
“Everyone around was on drugs,” Angella said. “My drug use got extremely heavy.”
Eventually, she got sick of her horrid surroundings and made a life-changing decision: No more.
“That was my turning point,” said Angella, who quit drugs and began attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
Today she’s been sober, of her own volition, for the past 16 months – a streak that is likely to continue until the day she dies.
“I will never, ever touch drugs again,” Angella said. “I wouldn’t change my sobriety for anything. I now know the benefits of living clean.”
The biggest such benefit is being a better mother to her children.
“They were their own parents for a long time,” said Angella, who has lost count of how many different schools her kids have attended over the years. “Although my kids forgave me a long time ago, forgiving myself for what they went through continues to be the hardest part for me.”
Shock and awe
Angela went on to kick another bad habit: forming relationships with questionable men. But by the time she had done so, she and her kids found themselves living in the aforementioned shelters in Northern Minnesota.
Thankfully, they met The Salvation Army. Soon after Angella gave birth to her son, now 7 months old, a shelter caseworker told her about a Salvation Army housing program for long-term homeless families. If she qualified, she and her kids could move into a new, privately-funded town home in the northern Twin Cities suburbs and receive case management services from The Salvation Army. The program’s cost would be equal to one-third of Angella’s disability income.
She applied and was accepted.
“Shock and complete awe,” Angella said. “Everything has been falling into place ever since I’ve been here.”
One notable improvement has been community support. Angella has never lived anywhere where her neighbors actually cared about her.
“Everywhere else I’ve been, everybody brings you down,” Angella said. “There’s always someone high or drunk. You can’t get ahead. Being in a community like this makes you feel so much better about yourself.”
Her community is so supportive that its residents showered her with secondhand furniture after she requested the items on social media.
“This house was completely furnished within five days,” Angella said. “When we first moved in here, we had nothing,”
Another time, a man helped Angella fix a flat tire on her car. Afterward, he invited Angella and her kids over for dinner and gave them a full-size bed and loads of baby items, including an expensive rocker.
“That man and his wife had a baby on the way, so everything they gave us, they had to go back out and buy brand new,” Angella said. “I started bawling.”
Personalized support
Angella has also received plenty of support from her Salvation Army caseworker, Lindsey Glasser (pictured). The two meet regularly to discuss any problems Angella may be having and what Lindsey can do to help.
“Sometimes I need help with paperwork – I get anxiety about it,” Angella said. “We were homeless for a while, so a lot of stuff got neglected, like doctor and dentist visits.”
Lindsey is proud of how far Angella has come.
“She is becoming so self-sufficient,” Lindsey said. “She’s becoming good at self-reflection and self-improvement. She has such a bright future.”
Thanks to Salvation Army housing programs, many other formerly homeless families have a bright future as well. Angella and her kids are one of 30 families enrolled in Salvation Army housing programs for long-term and chronically homeless families.
Funding for each town home or apartment living unit comes either from state programs, federal programs or private donors.
“Families struggling with homelessness need specialized support, and these important housing programs achieve that,” said Major Jeff Strickler, Twin Cities Salvation Army commander. “We thank our partner agencies and donors for their shared commitment in serving vulnerable families that require added help to achieve success.”
Please join The Salvation Army by volunteering or making a donation to support your local community.