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Camillus House News
‘Miracle’ baby, mother find help, new hope at Somerville Residence
Shaneka and her baby, Matthew.
Most people are lucky if they experience one miracle in a lifetime. But so far in her relatively young life, Shaneka, 25, has been blessed with two.
At the moment, one of them is giggling and gurgling on her lap. “You love Mommy? You love your Mommy?” Shaneka coos to the wiggling little bundle. It’s a moot question -- her infant son Matthew, 4 months, is smiling nonstop as he kicks his tiny feet, delighted at his mother’s abundant affections.
The new mother and her baby live at Somerville Residence, Camillus’s permanent housing community for underprivileged women and their children. Their efficiency apartment is chock-a-block with Matthew’s toys, clothes, bottles and pacifiers.
If not for Somerville, Shaneka confides, “I don’t know how we would live.” The $637 disability check she receives each month, plus $77 in food stamps, doesn’t go far, she says. It costs $15 just to buy one can of baby Matt’s formula. Occasionally, her sister, Arkisha, is able to help out by buying diapers.
“Somerville makes it easier for me because I only pay a small percentage of my income for us to live here,” Shaneka says. “And I like it because I am independent. I have my own place.”
Shaneka came to Somerville after falling on tough times at home. Two years before, her mother ordered her out of the family’s house after a fierce fight. Shaneka, who recovered from alcoholism, ended up at a homeless shelter and worked for a time picking up trash on the beach. It was painful work for Shaneka, who was born with spina bifida, a disease that cruelly twists the spine. The disease is the reason she receives disability.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before Camillus House heard of Shaneka’s plight. She came to live at Camillus’s Brownsville facility for single people. When she became pregnant, she was welcomed at Somerville.
Despite her crippling disease, Shaneka always had to be tough. She grew up in Liberty City, a Miami neighborhood where drugs and crime are rampant. But she beat the odds and never became involved in either. Her main battle was with spina bifida.
“Doctors told me I wouldn’t live to be 12,” Shaneka confides. Outliving that devastating prediction was her first miracle. Doctors also told her she would never have children. But when she became pregnant with Matthew last year, an overjoyed Shaneka dared to hope for a second miracle.
“I just prayed, ‘Please help me.’ I asked God please not to take away what He had given me,” she says.
Now that her little miracle has arrived, Shaneka says, “I never stop talking to him and playing with him.” And when the two leave their apartment for a spin through Somerville‘s open, airy walkways, throngs of friendly women and children vie for one of Matthew’s adorable and plentiful smiles.
“Somerville is a really friendly place where the women help each other out,” says case manager Sheila Avin.
Camillus House officially started the Somerville Residence supported housing program in April 2001, offering permanent, affordable housing for 47 families. The campus-style facility includes one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, as well as efficiencies. The program is designed to provide all the necessary support a family needs while a single parent works to reenter the workforce and reclaim their role as a productive member of society.
Somerville Residence brings together a wide range of supportive services aimed at helping families recovering from substance abuse transition to a life of independence. Services include on-site AA/NA meetings, computer classes, cooking classes, an urban garden, a private playground, tutoring, parenting classes, HIV/AIDS education, and case management. Health care is available through Camillus Health Concern directly next door. Many children attend the Charter school across the street.
For now, Shaneka is happy to spend her days with her miracle baby. Her joy at being a mother is obvious. Her plans for the future include going back to school to become an insurance transcriptionist once Matthew is old enough to go to school.
“I can’t wait to give him an even better life,” she says.
