When raising children, family help is crucial. There’s a reason the saying “It takes a village” is used to this day: parenting, work, and just the regular stresses of daily life mean parents need all the help they can get. Yet, instead of helping, some families might hit parents where it hurts most when they’re at their lowest.
When this single mother was struggling to find housing, her mother and sister volunteered to take her daughter in. But when she got back on her feet a few weeks later, the situation got super sus: they enrolled the kid in school without her knowledge, refused to tell her where, and threatened to call CPS. As a cautionary tale about how family members sometimes work against you, she shared her story online.
A single mother was struggling to find housing for her and her two children
Her family members volunteered to help, but had ulterior motives behind their seemingly good intentions
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to afford housing in the U.S.
The stigma around homelessness persists, even though research invalidates stereotypes that unhoused individuals are lazy, don’t want to work, or have issues with dependence on substances. Still, other financially struggling parents, like the mother in this story, may face similar situations, where even their family members turn against them.
Homelessness is a much more complicated problem than many people realize. While many assume that being homeless means being jobless too, research paints a very different picture. Researchers at the University of Chicago observed unhoused individuals from 2011 to 2018 and documented that 40% of unhoused people were employed either part-time or full-time.
This situation stems from the high cost of living in the U.S. While not everyone who struggles financially loses their home, many still can’t afford to live comfortably. According to Investopedia, 67% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Economist Jeffrey Fuhrer, for example, estimates that 43% of American households don’t have enough money to cover basic needs.
Just because a person doesn’t have housing doesn’t mean they’re not working. However, most of the time, they simply can't afford a home. It’s estimated that a person would need to earn $46,967, or $23 per hour, for a 2-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent, but the federal minimum wage is $7.25. Statistics show that unhoused individuals earn around $6,934 annually.
Normally, rent should be about 30% of a person’s or a household’s income, but housing is becoming more and more unaffordable in the U.S. According to the National Income Housing Coalition, the average renter wage is lower than the average cost of a one-bedroom rental in 36 states. So, seeing people struggle with affording housing shouldn’t seem so surprising.
Many people experience homelessness episodically or short-term
Thinking that being unhoused is a fixed state is harmful and wrong. People can experience different types of homelessness at different points in their lives. It’s hard to know the exact number, but experts estimate that around 745,652 Americans were experiencing homelessness in January 2025, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
This woman’s story illustrates that not every unhoused situation is about chronic homelessness. Experts usually identify four different types of homelessness:
- Transitional (acute). Being “between places” — either because of a traumatic or unexpected event, or a major life change. It’s quite common for people to live in their cars or in shelters and be unable to pay for housing and other expenses. More common than not, it’s younger people who experience transitional homelessness. This type of homelessness is also more common in the LGBTQ+ community because of family rejection.
- Episodic. Those who have experienced homelessness for at least three months in the last 12 months. The circumstances of these individuals are similar to those in transitional homelessness, but they tend to struggle with some kind of disabling condition despite being on the younger side.
- Chronic. Chronically unhoused people usually have a disabling mental or medical condition and have been without a home for a year or longer. The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that chronically homeless people tend to be older and make up about 17% of the unhoused population.
- Hidden. Sometimes, people temporarily live with their family members, friends, or acquaintances, but because they don’t access services for homeless people, they’re hard to account for. In many cases, it’s young people who have experienced a major or traumatic life change and can’t afford basic necessities right now.
“The economy is terrible, we don’t need to be backstabbing and creating heartbreak by stealing loved children from their parents,” one commenter echoed the sentiment of many
