I am going back to a memory of when I was told I had 30 days to leave my home where my son and I lived together for seven years. This happened in 2017 and the ordeal lasted for nearly four months.

I distinctly remember realizing I would never live in a home like that again. It was a beautiful space with an easy one level floor plan, a working fireplace, and an open layout, perfect if I needed my mobility devices. I remember being very scared as I had not lived anywhere else in Charlotte or North Carolina before. I didn’t even totally understand my new city or the layout of my neighborhood. I remember dreading telling the news to my son, uprooting him as he neared the end of his college education.

You see, my oldest son, who is autistic, was finishing up the last semester of his associate’s degree. It had taken him six years and we were so excited as he looked forward to finally completing his degree.

We were told we had to move out of the home within 30 days after 7 years of blissful, quiet living. I am a person with mobility, visual, and hearing impairments. My son is on the autism spectrum and has issues with changes in his routine. So moving him that quickly could have resulted in negative responses, including shutdowns. I also just needed time to be able to do all that was needed to make this move happen.

I remember saying I will not allow this to happen to us! I sent an email and letter to the leasing office and called repeatedly. I told them that as a person with disabling conditions, I needed more time. I told them I would never yank my son out of his safe space like that. It was so sad when they came back and only gave us an additional 30 days. I didn’t have it within me to keep fighting them on how much time it would take to pack everything up, find another place to live, disconnect services and utilities, and start all over in a new home.

Even though I started looking for a new place as soon as I could, traveling to different locations and putting out $50 to $75 per person (!) for application fees quickly drained my energy and my wallet. Long story short, we ended up having to put everything in storage and move into a hotel. In fact, if friends had not come along to help, we would have landed in a shelter, separated by gender, living in different, overcrowded facilities. With that thought hanging over my head and while living in a small hotel space, I continued to drive to properties, now further away, while my son continued to go to classes during the day.

I don’t remember much about coping, except trying to stay focused on finding a place to live: coming up with the money, buying the money orders, and filling out countless applications, all in person, then making sure I was back to the hotel in time to fix something for my son to eat. I had taught him how to travel to the community college using public transportation, but the campus was now 40 minutes away. I was too scared to let him walk along the highway to the nearest bus stop, so I would either get up early and drive him to the nearest stop, or call a rideshare car for him when it was too dark for me to see at night. This also drained our savings, but it was the only way.

There came the point when I ran out of money and had no more friends who could loan me any. At this point, I had to throw away everything we had with us, including a beautiful aloe plant that I had nurtured for 7 years. From there, my son and I spent two weeks on my boyfriend’s mother’s couch. I couldn’t stand those two weeks. She looked at me like I was some lost cause and told us we couldn’t stay long. That was when I hurt the most. I was desperate to find somewhere for us to go. I purposely stayed away even though that meant increased pain from not being able to lie down. I just didn’t want to seem like I was lazy. No one wanted to hear about my need for rest.

Finally, I got the word that we were accepted into an affordable housing unit! I still had to wait for the beginning of the next month to use my benefits to move in. It was under 1000 square feet, drafty, and had stairs, but it was going to be home for as long as I could keep it. It was better than being an unwanted couch-surfer or paying exorbitant fees to hotels. That put an end to our period of being house insecure and homeless. And, my son graduated with his associate’s degree, even making the Dean’s List.

Up until this point, I had never thought about being disabled and homeless. And I didn’t know or realize how difficult it was to find not only affordable but accessible housing. I didn’t know that it just wasn’t being built.

I learned that even within the Housing Authority, this was not a priority. New rental units were being built all around the city, but with no elevators, only steps outside in the elements, so if there were no first-floor units, you were out of luck.

I was also to learn that 40%-50% of the calls that came into the 211 system for people who were homeless or in imminent danger of being homeless were from people with disabilities. And, yet, there was and still is no program to address that need.

I learned that the shelters could reject you and say you were too much of a liability risk or they didn’t have the staff in their clinics to attend to you. If you were not able to care for your ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) independently, you could be rejected and removed with no other place given for support.

I also learned that very few transitional homes are accessible or able to care for a person with disabilities, especially physical ones. I learned that the main accessible domestic violence shelter was with the police department.

I learned that if you are homeless, people assume negative things about you and devalue you. They assume that you have untreated mental health illnesses and may become violent or that you are not dealing with your addiction successfully. I learned that hospitals can release you to the street, even after surgeries. I also experienced the painful time when one person I knew died because their medical history was not available and, when they were taken to the hospital from an encampment, everyone assumed they just OD’d when, in fact, they were having a stroke.

This experience changed my focus and passion around people with disabilities and housing. I have become an advocate to address the lack of services, resources, and support for us. I fight the stigma of homelessness. I fight for permanent, accessible, and affordable housing, not just transitional housing. I fight for dedicated shelter support, and wraparound service collaboration within the hospitals, community-based resources, and housing agencies.

We are so far from where we need to be. So, I remember my experience and keep fighting!