From homeless to home: Fall River family moves out of shelter into affordable apartment in Taunton

TAUNTON – Courtney Morris no longer has to wonder where she and her children will sleep at night.

Or where they will go to school.

And she now has a safe place to store her things.

“As of 2 p.m. Sept. 26, my family and I signed a lease and we are no longer homeless,” Morris told the dozens of officials who gathered for a ribbon cutting Thursday morning at Carpenter’s Glen affordable housing development in East Taunton.

She uttered those momentous words slowly and in a soft-spoken voice but with deep emotion and conviction.

She wasn’t at the ribbon cutting because it was her job. She was there because it was her life.

After Morris spoke, Carl Nagy-Koechlin, executive director of Housing Solutions for Southeastern Massachusetts, took to the podium.

“I don’t think there are any other questions why we went through this to make this all happen,” Nagy-Koechlin said.

Morris, 31, has been living in a shelter in Fall River with her two daughters, 6 and 13, and her mother, whom she thanked for her support and guidance.

But the four of them will be moving this weekend into an affordable townhouse at Carpenter’s Glen, one of eight units with a section 8 sliding scale rental subsidy.

Up until a few months ago, Morris was scraping by working at K-mart in Fall River until it closed its doors.

At the time, the family of four was squeezed into a one-bedroom apartment in Fall River paying $500 a month. Even after she lost her job, they were still able to swing the rent, just barely, because her mother is on disability, Morris said.

But then Morris complained to the landlord about safety issues and he evicted them with just two days notice, she said. She had no money for first and last month’s rent and a security deposit, so they found themselves in a shelter.

“It was a whirlwind. I lost my job and then my house,” Morris said.

But she didn’t lose hope, she said.

When she first saw her 3-bedroom townhouse at Carpenter’s Glen in June, she had to pinch herself. It was such a far cry from the inner city life her family had been living, she said.

It even has a big grassy backyard, with woods and sky to look out from the kitchen window.

“I can sleep at night without fear,” she said.

She can even dream.

Now that she has secure, affordable housing, she has two main goals, finding gainful employment and continuing her education, which in turn will allow her to offer those same life-changing opportunities to her children, she said.

Morris would like to be a social worker one day, perhaps working with homeless families, she said.

“It’s a beautiful thing when a great need is met,” she said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: From homeless to home: Fall River family moves out of shelter into affordable apartment in Taunton