It was more out of anger than anything that, nearly 25 years ago, Lori Parker picked up the phone to call me.
Oh, she was frustrated, for sure. Certainly desperate.
And who wouldn’t be in her situation.
Even after years of working hard in low-paying jobs, she had sunk into homelessness — bad enough for herself but even more dire because she also was responsible for a daughter who was pregnant.
Mostly, however, “I was mad,” said the now 72-year-old woman, because people would tell her, “just go to Hesed House.”
Which she tried to do, repeatedly. But the rules back then required a recommendation from a church or school, which was impossible because the two had neither to offer.
One thing I recognized immediately about Parker – and still holds true today – she’s determined. Fortunately, after the story was published, Hesed House made room for the family. It was, she told me, “the hand-up” that made all the difference in her life.
Not only was she able to climb “step by step” out of the abyss, three years ago, at age 69, Parker bought her first house, where she lives comfortably with her daughter and two grandsons.
Catching up with Parker all these years later as she described her inspiring journey from homelessness to homeowner is not only a lesson in hope (wrapped in gritty determination), it is a reminder to all of us that we can’t judge those who find themselves needing shelter from the storms that can hit at any time in our lives.
“You don’t have to do something wrong to find yourself in a place I was in,” she insisted.
Parker’s journey actually began in 1998 when she was living “paycheck to paycheck” in North Aurora, grateful her job at an office supply store was close enough to walk to because she could not afford a car.
“I was making too much to get assistance,” she recalled, “but not enough to survive.”
Things went from bad to worse, however, when Parker developed health issues. And her options became even more limited having to walk or take a bus to any part-time job she could find.
The Parkers ended up relying on family and friends for a while, either couch surfing or spending a few nights – or weeks if lucky – in cheap motels. She recalls relentlessly contacting social service agencies when she had the use of a phone, but there were always glitches or rules that prevented her from the help she needed.
It got to the point, Parker admitted, “where I didn’t want to wake up in the morning … but I kept going. I had to keep going for my family.”
Everywhere she went, Parker would be hit by two questions: “What did you do wrong to end up like this?” and “Why don’t you go to Hesed House?”
Thankfully, after the story was published, the Aurora shelter made an exception to its rule (which was eventually dropped, according to Hesed House Executive Director Joe Jackson), and Parker lived there for a year, even after her daughter got married and moved out with her young child.
But it was tough going. To get to her temp job, Parker would have to walk, catch buses, catch trains and walk even more … a commute that added five hours to her work day.
Still, being able to save two-thirds of her paycheck made it possible for her to get a driver’s license, buy a car and save enough to lease an apartment.
It was the game-changer she had been seeking.
Twenty-one years after that story ran, Parker signed a contract on a refurbished three-bedroom home in Lee County, thanks to a mortgage with the United States Department of Agriculture that encourages home ownership in rural areas.
It was actually “getting mad again,” she told me, that made her decide to try for that mortgage. Parker was paying nearly a thousand dollars in rent a month for an apartment in Waterman with a leaky ceiling the landlord did not fix until the health department got involved, she said.
These days the once homeless woman is finally making a good wage working remotely for the procurement department of a company while sitting at her kitchen table.
Her daughter was diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome, an incurable and progressive condition that has left her physically disabled. That is one reason Parker purchased a home in rural Illinois, where property taxes are far lower. And it’s why she’s trying to pay more on her mortgage than required so that “when I’m gone,” her daughter will be able to stay in the house.
“An awful lot of people in this country are but one tragedy away from being where I was,” said Parker. “If you get the proper help at the proper time, you can rebuild. It’s not easy but it’s possible. But if you can’t, you are destined to fall further and further into the abyss.
“It took me 21 years to rebuild, but I did it.”
