Stories
Meet Jasmine
A car accident in 2018 left Jasmine with serious injuries. “With a broken leg, I couldn’t be homeless anymore,” she says. Her only option was a shelter. “That’s where I connected with Friendship Place.“ Our Before Thirty program for young adults helped her find housing. “They came through when everyone else denied me.”
Thirty-year-old Jasmine has fought hard to achieve the joy she experiences today. “I was molested all the time,” she says, “I was assaulted sexually, mentally…in every way,” while growing up in the Maryland and DC foster care systems.
At 18, she aged out of foster care and became homeless. Looking for stability, Jasmine earned a GED and a carpentry license, finding a full-time job, a partner, and an apartment. But her relationship grew violent. “I realize now that I stayed because I really liked having a place.” After leaving, she began “winging it again,” sleeping wherever she could, “in my car, hotels”—all while maintaining a full-time job. But her salary of nine dollars an hour at Jiffy Lube wasn’t enough to afford a place to live.
Today, stably housed and employed at Kawasaki, Jasmine is in a healthy relationship and earning more money than ever.
