Single homeless mother in need of help

Hi, my name is Jessica and this is very hard for me to write. I am a single mother to my 15 year old son. I had to take on a different job with lesser pay, cutting my income down by more than half. By doing so I have fallen on hard times.

In the past weeks, my son and I have found ourselves homeless with our 3 pets. We have a 1 year old Yorkie and two 1 year old cats. I have been using my checks to get a storage unit to put all of our belongings into, a U-Haul to move everything in a timely manner, I have to keep up on my car payment so we can make it back and forth to school and work, paying for a hotel room at the cheapest place I could find.

I am asking for help, so that I’m able to keep up with keeping the room for us to stay in as well as being able to keep up on my car payment and save some money to get us into a home again.

I have reached out to several agencies and in order to get any type of assistance I would have to go to a shelter. I can not take my pets to a shelter and would like that as a last resort as I don’t want to put my son through that. I have reached out to the shelters to see what the process is and the shelters are all full. At least in the room it’s just the two of us and our pets. His school is providing me with gas cards so that I am able to get him back and forth to school, but that goes by so fast, as I use a half tank of gas every day. We are currently staying in the cheapest room I could find which is in Waterford, I drive him to school in Ortonville and then I drive myself to work in Troy. At the end of the day I have to drive back out to Ortonville to get him from football practice and then back to Waterford.

The room is currently $487 a week and I have to pay my car payment of $120 every week. I am currently bringing home $550 every week on a 40 hour check.

Any and all help is highly appreciated. This is the hardest time I have found myself in and I am quite embarrassed about it. But as a mother I cannot give up. I am trying to take it one step at a time and day by day.

We were given the opportunity to stay with a friend for the time being, allowing me the chance to save some money. I still have to pay $350 to stay where I am staying, plus the car payment, phone bill, gas, food, etc. My son's 16th birthday is tomorrow and I have nothing for him for the first time in 16 years. Christmas is in less than a month and for the first time I am not in the Christmas spirit. I really don't know how I am going to pull this off this year.