“I remember looking in that little mirror in the jail cell and asking myself, when are you gonna be done with this life? When do you want to make something more of yourself?”
Tara’s addiction had plagued her for more than two decades by the time everything came to a head in a jail cell in 2021.
She had lost her apartment after her arrest; lost her cleaning business; and worst of all – lost custody of her then-four-year-old daughter.
“She wasn't asked to be brought into this world. And what I had done to her -- she was ripped from her family, ripped from her mom and CPS took her,” Tara said.
It was the wakeup call Tara needed.
A treatment program followed, and then six months in transitional housing where she could continue to focus on recovery, and begin the process of family reunification with her Child Welfare caseworker. She entered into other supportive programs as well, including the Placer Re-Entry Program through Probation.
But like many, Tara faced a lot of unknowns as she prepared to exit transitional housing: Where would she live? Work? How would she make ends meet as she made critical changes in her life to regain custody of her daughter, an intensive process in its own right filled with meetings and classes.
As she prepared for the change, Tara’s team connected her with the Bringing Families Home program. A relatively new program that began in Placer County in 2019 as a collaboration between the Human Services and Children’s System of Care divisions, Bringing Families Home supports families who are involved in the child welfare system and are in the reunification process; and who are homeless or at risk of homelessness such that it could threaten their ability to reunify with their children or increase the likelihood of a foster placement.
The program helps clients find permanent supportive housing, get into that housing, and then helps supplement their rent for up to a year. It also assists with moving costs, deposits, utility payments, car payments and more. Clients also receive support in finding and gaining employment, becoming self-sufficient and fully assuming rental and other payments by the end of the program.
For parents who are laser-focused on one thing – getting their child back – the program allows them to focus without worrying about some of the basics, staff say, which paves the way for longer-lasting success.
“Families are undergoing a tremendous amount of stress and strain. And this is just one other way for them to relieve at least that barrier,” said Children’s System of Care director Twylla Abrahamson, whose division works with about 245 youth and their families per year. “Before [this program] we would do things like shorter-term hotel vouchers – really trying to find a way to support the family, but really not for the longer-term basis. The great thing about the Bringing Families Home collaborative, which is part of our larger homeless and housing services collaborative, is that we can focus on some of the root causes and the root issues around folks not having homes.”
Tara applied for the program through Human Services’ Housing Authority, and began working with program partner AMI Housing to search for apartments. Fairly quickly, she found a two-bedroom apartment in Auburn – and got in. Loading her belongings up, the new home felt like the promise of something that had been missing in her life for years: stability.
“I finally got my child back at a time when I was ready to get her back … I was able to enjoy her knowing that I could support her and give her a life that a five-year-old deserves to have.”
Tara’s now-five-year-old daughter came back to live with her a few months after she moved into the Auburn apartment, when the mother had gotten a job along with financial supports for the girl’s schooling.
Tara glows when she talks about her daughter, whose room is decorated with pink flowers and has a fish tank burbling in the corner. She loves the fact that their arguments these days mostly center on whether chocolate peanut butter cups are a breakfast food – miles away from the fear and uncertainty of her daughter’s younger years.
But that trauma, too, has lasting impacts that the mother recognizes.
“It's a joy to have her back and I thank God every day for having her back. But it's going to take consistent work to help her with the things that she's been through,” Tara said. Counseling has helped the pair work through several challenges. And their apartment has brought a huge sense of stability.
“She knows what's gonna happen, she's got her bathtub and her toys, and as small as those things may seem like, it's huge for her,” Tara said. “It's what she truly needs and deserves.”
The Bringing Families Home program was funded by a competitive grant when it first began, but officials have taken note of its success across California, including in Placer. Starting this year, the program will be funded as a standard allocation to counties, cementing it among the array of services offered in Placer.
Tara’s child welfare case closed in June, and she bid a “bittersweet goodbye” to her caseworker. By November, she will assume responsibility for her full rental payments. She now has a job working at a recovery center, and is going to school – in part funded by Bringing Families Home – to become a drug and alcohol counselor. Helping others, she says, feels like a way to give back after receiving so much support herself.
“I never knew what I wanted to be before or where I wanted to go, and now I have a sense of … I have a purpose, like I know where I fit in, and I've never felt that in my life.”