When I was eight years old, my father had a mental breakdown that caused him to take a gun to my mom, which inflicted her with a total of 11 gunshot wounds. One was lodged in her left eye, causing her to go blind in that eye. From that moment, my whole life’s trajectory changed. We became homeless, begging for people to allow us a space in their home temporarily. After some time, my mom was able to do some in-home caregiving work in exchange for a living space. I translated, since my mom didn’t speak English well, her native language being Slovak. This went on until I was 13 years old, when we were finally graced with the mercy of winning the Section 8 lottery. This incident caused so much havoc in our lives that it was difficult to see an end to the tunnel. Finally, at the age of 23, I studied up on finances and credit score management and was successfully able to get my mother and me out of the Section 8 system. Then the pandemic hit, and we barely survived that, but we luckily made it through!