01 Jun On Her Own Two Feet: Jamie’s Story

Jamie was about to turn 40 when she reached a low point in her life. She had just gone through a divorce, and then she got mixed up in drugs.

At the time, Jamie was living in Florida and working day labor, so she did not have a steady job. “Most of my money was being spent on drugs,” she says.

Just a short time later, Jamie found herself living on the streets. “I slept on riverbanks, the beaches and under picnic tables in parks. Then, I lived in a tent for almost a year.”

After five years of homelessness and drugs, Jamie got a wake-up call. “My sister told me she didn’t know when she was going to talk to me again, because she couldn’t take it anymore.”

That helped motivate Jamie to turn her life around. She stopped doing drugs, started saving money and moved to Nashville where she stayed with family while she searched for work. She didn’t have much luck. “I was putting in job application after job application, but I wasn’t getting anywhere because of my age and my job history.”

That’s when Jamie visited one of our Career Solutions centers and took a few job training classes. She was eventually offered an opportunity at Goodwill and, after a 30-day assessment, she landed a full-time job.

Watch Jamie’s story: