SEPTEMBER 27, 2022
By Janie Magruder
Mary Forrester was in anything but a celebratory mood shortly before her 70th birthday last January. COVID-19’s latest variant had worsened an already unstable housing situation for Forrester, whose fixed income was insufficient to cover her bills. Alone and on the cusp of running out of money and losing the roof over her head, Forrester called Arizona’s 211 help line and learned about the city of Tempe’s HOPE — Homeless Outreach Prevention Effort.
“When you think of being homeless, you are out there, you might starve or someone might try to hurt you,” said the Philadelphia native who moved to Arizona 13 years ago. “If I was 30, maybe I would have felt a little stronger, but I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to me. I felt like I wasn’t going to make it at my age.”
When the city’s HOPE team contacted Forrester almost immediately, and told her they could help, she was filled with hope of her own.
She is among hundreds of people experiencing homelessness who have been helped this year by Tempe’s Homeless Solutions.
“You are drowning, and all of a sudden, there’s a life jacket,” she said. “They treated me with kindness, with respect and dignity, they didn’t look down on me. And in less than a day, they had me. I was in the hands of HOPE.”
Two days before Forrester’s birthday, the team helped her move into a clean, natural light-filled, one-bedroom apartment near Arizona State University. It was modestly furnished with a twin bed and a large sectional, and it left her speechless.
“It’s a mansion,” she said. “It’s mine.”
Forrester had long ago lost her birth certificate and Social Security cards, but the HOPE team was able to help her replace both.
The city obtained a housing voucher for her, which helps offset her rent, and also paid her security deposit.
Today, she is getting to know the city better, riding the bus to visit the Tempe History Museum or to play bingo at Pyle Adult Recreation Center. She is meeting and greeting her neighbors, including ASU students about whom Forrester says, “I might remind them of their grandma.”
Her apartment is dotted with houseplants and other special touches, a small altar with a Bible and wooden cross, a blue “home sweet home” cup and her crocheting, taken up after 40 years of dormancy.
“I do wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have HOPE,” Forrester says.
“I’m grateful to God. He put Tempe in my life, and without them, I honestly don’t think I would have survived.”
https://www.wranglernews.com/2022/09/27/tempe-hope-team-brings-respect-dignity-to-homeless/
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