Before her daughter was born in 2024, Ariana McClendon’s closest family members were over 2,000 miles away in arid and sun-soaked Southern California. Though, it was originally her family that brought Ariana to North Carolina.
During her junior year of high school, the entire family made the cross-country move from California to North Carolina. While her family moved back to the west coast, she chose to stay in Charlotte after high school and put down roots.
It takes an immense amount of inner-strength and courage to be a young adult starting out on your own, so far away from everything and everyone familiar. For Ariana, becoming a mom has only amplified her strength.
It was summer of 2024 and Sandra Mbiki paused to look out the window of Hawthorne Place, a family shelter where herself and her three children had been living. Across the street she saw Novant Health’s Presbyterian Medical Center.
“I looked out and I was like wow — outside of the window from the shelter we were living in was the hospital where I gave birth to my son,” she remembers. “I never knew when I was there, when I had him, that I would ever need this kind of help.”
Sandra was born in Central Africa, in the Republic of Congo, where she grew up as the fourth of eight children in a tight-knit family. Today, her family stretches across continents. For more than a decade, Sandra has been building her life in North Carolina. Here in Charlotte, thousands of miles from where she spent her childhood, Sandra is part of a new, smaller close-knit family comprising herself and her three children.
Becoming a mom impacted Sandra’s life more than anything else. For her, motherhood is the thing that expanded her view of the world and of herself the most.
“I think differently,” she says of motherhood. “Bigger than what I was thinking before.”
Being a mom is also the thing that motivates Sandra to get up and keep going, even when the math doesn’t add up and the path forward isn’t clear.
A mother of two daughters, Lonesha sees motherhood as the grounding and motivating force in her life.
“It gives me a purpose, being able to give proper love to my children, having somebody to love and having somebody love me unconditionally – that’s the best thing.”
As a single mom, she carries the full weight of making sure they are provided and cared for. She’s also spent much of her adult life caring for her own mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis. For many years the four of them lived together. But in the midst of her mom’s health declining, the family missed the deadline for Section 8 recertification. They were evicted.
Lonesha moved her mom into a nursing home; and, having no other place to go, she and her daughters began staying in hotels.
“It was like $85 a night, and on weekends they’d go up,” she remembers. “Certain places wouldn’t let you stay more than 20 days, so you’d have to pick up everything and move. There was no time to save anything. I had no rental history, nothing, because I always lived with my mom. I was working full time as a CNA and DoorDashing after work, but still just not making enough.”
On a quiet street in North Charlotte, Terri walks with her four daughters to the bus stop each morning. As the sun rises over their first real house—a place with a yard that needs mowing, front steps to race up, a well-loved basketball hoop in the driveway, and rooms for each child to play—she still finds herself pausing in disbelief. “It took me about six months to really realize, like, okay, I can breathe now,” Terri says. “I was walking them to the bus stop one day, and I thought, wow, we got a house. It’s real.”
Five years ago, Nika began a remarkable journey. As a single mother working long hours at a fast-food restaurant, she connected with Charlotte Family Housing after an eviction. During the program, she set ambitious goals: repair her credit score, build savings, advance in her career, and work toward homeownership.
Today, Nika has achieved these goals and more. She’s doubled her income as an assistant manager, built strong relationships with her coworkers, saved consistently, and is participating in the Habitat for Humanity homeownership program.
“I’m almost done with this Habitat program… They’re fixing to build me a house for me and my son. Being in this program just really, really, really helped me,” she shares with pride.
In summer 2022, Nika needed surgery that left her unable to work for several weeks. The financial strain and uncertainty triggered intense anxiety, and she spiraled into depression.
Seven children were depending on Tabetha – and she needed a solid place to land.
A crane operator and a single mother to four of her own children, as well as her sister’s three children, who she is now raising, Tabetha first came to Charlotte Family Housing in 2023.
After she and her family were forced to abruptly leave their home. Without a financial safety net or a reliable support network to lean on, they had no place to land. Tabetha felt overwhelmed and guilty at having to split her children up as she hurried to find a solution.
“At first, I’m not going to lie, I was so embarrassed and humiliated,” she recalls. “It was a very embarrassing and shameful moment for me to go through.”
By chance, she overheard a social worker talking about Charlotte Family Housing, and she applied, drawn to a program that would allow her entire family to stay together. She was accepted and moved her family of 8 into temporary housing at Plaza Place.
There, she found space to breathe and reflect. She embraced therapy and the emotional support offered by our staff and embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing.
“I found out that I am more worthy than I thought I was. And I learned to love myself a lot more, too,” she says.
Now, more than a year into the program, Tabetha and her family are back in their own space with lots of room to live and play together.
“I needed CFH. It brought togetherness for me and my family. It actually brought us closer. I recommend the program to anybody now because whatever you put in, you’re going to get out of it.”
