Carina kicked out after inpatient hospital visit

Resident finds gratitude for eviction, freedom to explore gender identity.

An abusive home life led Carina to admit herself to an inpatient facility to prevent self-harm. Carin’as parents were upset that she had told outsiders about her home life and it was the catalyst for her eviction.

Carina had been homeless for 1.5 months before moving into the Hope Center. During that time, she stayed in a motel and shelters, returned to the inpatient hospital, then lived with another queer friend she met while an inpatient.

I feel like the world is not sweet on regular people, much less marginalized people … I hit that intersectional trifecta – disabled, black, feminine-presenting, queer.

Carina was kicked out of her house on a Friday night with no warning. Shelters were already full by the evening so she spent the first night sleeping in her car. She woke up the next day at 5 a.m. to line up for entrance to a homeless shelter in Dallas to get a space to sleep and sit on the floor.

“I feel like my life hadn’t really started since I became homeless, honestly,” Carina said. “That’s weird to say, but I think another pretty big thing about me is my queerness and my disabilities together because I feel like those things were – became the head of tension that led me to getting kicked out of my parents’ house.”

Carina has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which affects joint tissue connection and has POTS which is a deregulation of blood flow while standing or sitting up. This can cause pain, dizziness, headaches, nausea and tremors. Carina frequently experienced knee dislocations before getting corrective surgery, but Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a disability that still affects all parts of her body and life.

“My disability was pretty much the perfect storm because I am fairly active,” Carina said. “Even if I’m not doing sports or stuff like that, I really want to be doing things every day. Even if it’s not moving my body, I’m writing or doing something creative so especially it got bad once I hit puberty. And then my symptoms got super bad once I graduated high school.”

At the first shelter, some people were given mats to sleep on, but most, like Carina, were just given a spot on the floor. She arrived over the weekend so she had to wait until Monday to see a case manager and get connected with resources.

“It was just a big room with just chairs and you weren’t allowed to lay down,” Carina said. “My blood in my body is fighting gravity, so my blood pools in my legs and just sitting in a chair straight up like that is very painful. My legs were in so much pain. Oh my God. I don’t know how I stayed there for the two days that I did.”

The rest of Carina’s family lives in California but an extended family member was able to help by sending enough money for her to stay at a motel for a few days. Carina waited for the inpatient facility to open again after the weekend and called as soon as she could to check back in and get help.

“I’d say those days at the shelter and the motel till I went back again to inpatient were very rough emotionally,” Carina said. “Physically, I was pretty much breaking down sobbing in the motel room… I never thought I’d be in this situation because I guess my thinking was that I’d be able to play along with my parents long enough till I could get my own place. I did not think this was in my future.”

While as an inpatient, Carina met a queer boy who offered to let her stay at his one-bedroom apartment. She was apprehensive to accept the offer but had no other options and crashed with him.

“It’s not just a lot of labor being homeless, you have to be very smart because if you’re not, you’ll stay where you are,” Carina said. ”It’s very hard picking yourself out of that spot. So you have to know what to do at the right time, know what to say at the right time. So I feel like coming to a place like [Dallas Hope Charities], you don’t have to be in that survival mode.”

“I feel if DHC didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be able to realize another part of myself.”

When she got in touch with Dallas Hope Charities, Carina had the opportunity to go by a chosen name which lit a spark of curiosity for her to explore her gender identity.

“They asked me what my preferred name was and I actually really thought about it then because I guess there isn’t a lot of opportunities to express yourself like that here in Texas, so that was the first time I actually, really thought about it,” Carina said. “And actually I have this name in my head that I would really prefer people to call me. And it’s funny because I’m a writer and I usually give those names to my characters, but being able to externally hear other people call me by that name was like ‘oh, that’s why I’m really so uncomfortable with my legal name.’”

Carina said that a lot of shelters aren’t equipped to handle disabled or queer folks experiencing homelessness.

“If DHC wasn’t here, I’d pretty much just be like on the streets, in shelters,” Carina said. “I feel if DHC didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be able to realize another part of myself.”

By providing housing, resources, and a supportive community for residents, Dallas Hope Charities helps queer youth explore and understand their identities.

“I’m discovering myself again,” Carina said. “And this is another part of who I am that I didn’t even realize that I was casting it out because of the situation that I was in with my parents,”

Carina is passionate about writing. She grew up volunteering at the library and she has dreams to earn her master’s degree to become a librarian. She currently writes fantasy stories and she has a goal to complete her first book this year.

“I feel like [ getting kicked out ] definitely had to happen because if I did stay there, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere,” Carina said. “That isn’t to say the whole thing wasn’t super traumatic and painful, but I think things had to happen in the way that they did because if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have the willpower to stay here, to separate myself from my parents.”

After moving into the Hope Center, Carina started looking for ways to be involved in volunteer opportunities within the program and stay active.

“Coming to DHC I’m actually excited for my future for the first time,” Carina said. “I feel like the world is not sweet on regular people, much less marginalized people who are – you know, I hit that intersectional trifecta – disabled, black, feminine-presenting, queer… But I hope that I can be the type of person that the younger me needed. And I hope I can be that person for other people.”