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Camillus House News
The Nightmare (and the Blessing) After Christmas
October 24, 2008
by Veronica Montali
Joanne and José Tavares.
HOMESTEAD – Joanne Tavares’ face is blank, she can’t find words to describe her family’s circumstances. Her husband, José, glances at her and then speaks softly to a visitor, “Here’s what it took for us to get here. I’ll tell you what happened…”
José is referring to the place their family has called home for the past 18 months. The three-bedroom apartment at Camillus House’s Mother Seton Village is well-kept and has a tranquil feel. It smells like fresh paint. José, who needs insulin daily and is legally blind, has gone around touching up the walls in preparation for the interview.
Joanne has taken time off work to sit in the family room and try to evoke painful memories – and to share why she feels new hope for the future.
The family’s story goes back to 2001 when undiagnosed diabetes started hampering José’s sight. He had to stop working as a truck driver for a flower growing company. He moved his wife and five young children to a house owned by his sister in Miami, a home he could afford to rent with his meager SSI disability checks. He placed the children in surrounding public schools. Life was frugal but stable, happy.
But things didn’t stay tranquil for long. José’s sister had sent her troubled oldest daughter to share the house with them.
“Sadly, my niece and her friends were bad news,” José says. “Our children endured living in a house where there was loud partying until late hours, extremely inappropriate behavior and drugs.
“At that point,” he continues, “I felt like I had no other choice but to call the police. By the time they arrived, my niece and her friends had run away.”
After that incident José realized he couldn’t confront his sister and keep living at the house, so he told Joanne to pack the family’s belongings.
“We headed out,” he recalls, “with no idea where we’d end up.”
A few days after Christmas 2006, the family was homeless.
Joanne was especially distraught at the situation. “Growing up, my family always had a place to call home, first in New York where I was born and then in Carroll City. So being on the streets was very hard for me,” she says.
After spending three nights crammed in a hotel room and with no money left, José, 52, and Joanne, 41, and their five children, sought help. They were referred to Team Metro, a police unit, which in turn referred them to an emergency shelter run by the Homeless Assistance Center (HAC) in Homestead where they all stayed in one room.
When Camillus House learned of the family’s plight, they were taken in at Mother Seton Village, a transitional housing program for families operated by Camillus House in the former Homestead Air Force Reserve Base.
As they come to this part of the story, Joanne’s expression is more relaxed now. The couple seems to smile some.
“At Mother Seton Village we have enough space for the children to have their own bedrooms,” she explains. “We received all we needed at a time when we couldn’t take care of them ourselves: school uniforms, book vouchers, kitchen supplies and bus passes…We had only to ask our Camillus’ case manager and we were helped.”
With the compassion and stability they found at Camillus House, the family rebounded.
Joanne and José, who met through family friends within the immigrant Dominican community, are relieved the saddest episode of their life together seems well behind them. Today, the children are doing well in school. They have after-school tutoring, an on-site playground and access to Summer Camps at the Village. And, thanks to the Career Help program and her own initiative and enthusiasm, Joanne has gone back to school and earned Security Guard and CNA nursing certificates to add to her pharmacy technician training.
“It’s tough to find a job,” she says pointing out how helpful it has been having access to a computer linked to a jobs database as well as attending Job Fairs set up for Camillus clients.
She now has a job greeting customers in English and Spanish at a nearby electronics store that allows her to be home when the children arrive from school.
José stays home nursing the ailments that come along with diabetes, a disease that he didn’t know runs in his family until his symptoms appeared. The difficulties of coping with life in a large family are redirected to “staying focused in the children’s education,” he says.
The four youngest children, ages 16,15,13 and 12 speak Spanish and English fluently, plus sign language which the family learned together to communicate with Joanne’s oldest son, now 20 and living on his own in a house with four other deaf-mute youths.
All is looking up for the family now. They are stable and looking forward to a brighter future. But that doesn’t mean they’re standing still.
In fact, the Tavares are getting ready to move again. Their case manager, Marlene Burgos, has helped them find a permanent place where they will begin a new life.
“Joanne is a success story,” Burgos says. “She and her family have benefited from all the different programs and opportunities under the Camillus system of care. The system is designed with a purpose: to help our clients find their way back, and Joanne and her family have done their part and taken that road.”
“Una bendición, a blessing,” says a smiling Joanne referring to how Camillus House was there for them and changed everything during their darkest hour.
