RECLAIMING VICTORY

The Married Couple
Names: Waurkeeta Bost, 30; Richard Bost, 35
Location: Columbus, Ohio

‘Our goals are to find a safe place to live, get employed, raise our children and be productive.’

Waurkeeta: I was born and raised in Columbus. My husband is from Chicago. Richard and I kind of found each other here, fell in love and got married. We have three kids, Jayden, 5; Jaijuan, 6; and Sandrea, 13.

I worked for a company called Excel, which works with Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us. They do online merchandising. I was a receiver. It was a seasonal position from September until December 2008. It was my second year working for them. They let me go the day before Christmas.

Launch Gallery 

Richard: I used to work on the production line of Magnetic Springs, a water bottling company. I was there a little over three years working as a water bottler until the layoff in October 2008. 

I’ve worked a few temp jobs since the layoff. None of them really took. I also do a lot of other things. If I had my choice, I’d be a cook. I got my experience as a cook in the military. At the time that I was working, we were renting a house with three bedrooms.

Waurkeeta: We couldn’t afford to live in the house anymore and they were trying to evict us. So to not have anything [bad] on our credit report, we left. My older sister let us come and live with her from October 2008 to April of this year.

There were some issues at her house. We made the decision to come here to get the help that we needed. The shelter (YWCA Columbus) is divided into different “neighborhoods.” We have our own room with bunk beds. We have a shower in the bathroom and they have a shared family bathroom to bathe the kids in.

The first night in the shelter, Jaijuan cried.  I was a little leery of coming to a shelter. I’ve never been in a shelter and I didn’t know what to expect. But when I got here, everyone made me feel basically like I was home. The staff was nice.

I don’t blame anybody else or blame myself for our situation. I felt like, if I had known [what could happen], I would have done this differently and that differently. But when they give you a pink slip to let you know that your job is ending … I was like, “They could have let me go that [previous] Monday, instead of waiting.” I was hurt more because I had small kids and I have a child who is autistic. That was another big thing. It was like, “Oh, how are we going to do this?”

Jayden was diagnosed when he was three years old. He has his moments. He mostly has a speech delay, but we were still able to potty train him. He goes to a special-needs preschool.

[The kids] are coping better with living here. My daughter wasn’t feeling it at first and my sister let her stay with her until we could get her bused to her school. We took our son back and forth to school. My daughter is living with us again. She’s OK with it now.

Richard: The job market is kind of dry in Columbus. We went to a job fair yesterday. All of the jobs require that you apply for them on the Internet. Here, they let you use the computers to apply for jobs.

I mean, looking back, there were things that I should have done differently or better. It’s too late to dwell on those things. All I can do is what I can do for now. I don’t have the luxury or time to sit back and wonder about what I could have done or should have done. My kids, my wife, they depend on me so, I can’t fail them.

The Single Mother