Home Sweet Home: Interfaith helps two previously homeless women find their forever home

Tina Howerton, left, and Lisa Dondero, right, pose for a photo on the back porch of the Interfaith Emergency Services Duplex that they share on Northwest 26th Street in Ocala, Fla. on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021. Howerton has an intellectual disability and Dondero has cancer. Both women are being helped by Interfaith Emergency Services with housing and some of their other needs. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2021.

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Posted January 7, 2022 | By James Blevins
james@ocalagazette.com

Tina Howerton and Lisa Dondero don’t always agree.

For instance, they each have a different name for the black-and-white cat that often slinks into their backyard and watches them read on their back porch – the Bible for one, mystery novels for the other.

“His name is Sweetheart,” said Howerton.

“His name is Patches,” countered Dondero.

But the roommates of more than four years do agree on one thing: if not for Interfaith Emergency Services, they wouldn’t be sharing a duplex off Northwest 26th Street in Ocala.

They’d probably still be homeless.

“I would be in a very bad way if not for Interfaith,” said Dondero. “They have helped me immensely.”

“I thank God for Interfaith every day,” Howerton said.

Fast Friends

“I was working with Sears for a while,” said Dondero, who moved to Ocala from South Carolina, her home of 30-plus years, to live with her sister. When that arrangement didn’t work out, the now 66-year-old was forced to live on the streets.

“Sears closed,” she said; “I never thought that would happen.”

Howerton, 61, hails from Oklahoma but moved to Colorado following a bad marriage that ended in divorce.

“It was because of domestic violence,” said Howerton, who soon became homeless and traveled from shelter to shelter.

A devoutly Christian woman, Howerton would wind her way from Colorado to California for a couple more years, before hitchhiking her way to Florida, and eventually Ocala, where she has lived for the last six years, most of that time in Interfaith’s duplex.

Dondero joined her four and a half years ago. That’s when the two of them first met and began forming a quick friendship.

Neither roommate ever thought they’d be living in a duplex, let alone have a bed of their own to sleep in, before coming into contact with Interfaith.

“I had no idea something like this could happen to me,” said Howerton.

“I never thought I’d live anywhere but a shelter,” added Dondero. “I feel very fortunate; Interfaith has helped me so much.”

Born Out of Heartbreak

Interfaith CEO Karla Grimsley-Greenway explained that the reason the non-profit first acquired the duplex was to house as many intellectually disabled homeless women as possible—many of which struggle to live independently—because it was breaking her heart to keep putting them back on the street.

“When women come through our shelter now that we identify as someone who can’t live successfully alone, usually because of intellectual capacity, we allow them to transition [at our duplex],” Grimsley-Greenway said.

“We don’t force them,” she said. “But of course, most of them want to move in and they’ve all been just wonderful tenants.”

A gift from Habitat for Humanity in 2014, Interfaith has remodeled the duplex over the years, said Grimsley-Greenway.

“We got a grant from the county and then the Habitat team rehabbed it for us because it was not habitable when we got it,” she said. “They went in and fixed it up.”

Before moving any tenants into the duplex, Interfaith staff vets them, making sure they have basic life skills such as cleaning up after themselves and self-care routines like bathing.

Most importantly of all, they must be able to live in harmony with others.

“And it’s permanent,” said Grimsley-Greenway. “As long as they need housing, they will be there.”

Howerton and Dondero live in one unit of the duplex, while a mother and her daughter with disabilities occupy the second unit.

“Before this, there was just no option for them,” she said. “They could make no income and weren’t hirable because of being low functioning. So, they volunteer with us and that gives them a sense of having a job or having a purpose. And they seem to enjoy that; it also gives them a little bit of a community.”

The duplex project started what Interfaith is hoping to duplicate with the 14-unit apartment complex it recently purchased from Arnette House off Northeast 14th Street in Ocala for Permanent Support Housing (PSH).

The PSH program’s mission is to end chronic homelessness for as many people as possible through wraparound support services, on-site case management and trauma counseling.

“They need to stay housed,” said Grimsley-Greenway. “Because it’s one thing to get them off the street and get them a house, which is hard enough, but to keep them housed when they need so much ongoing support, is the real challenge.”

After receiving the duplex from Habitat for Humanity, Howerton was a major reason for Interfaith choosing to use the building for its current purpose, she said.

“Tina inspired me to go down this path [with this duplex],” said Grimsley-Greenway. “She was our first resident, which was so fulfilling to me because again, it always just haunted me that I had to put someone like her back on the streets.

“To be able to give them both a forever home was just probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me here at Interfaith,” she said. “They are our family now.”

A Home of Their Own

After living together for nearly five years, Howerton and Dondero have truly bonded, riding out the hard times together, sharing joys and sorrows.

But the roommates do have their moments, especially since Dondero began receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Mood swings are common.

“That short temper that Italians have, you know? I’m terrible,” said Dondero. “It’s always a challenge living with other people.”

“I don’t argue that much,” confessed Howerton. “I don’t like to argue. But I’ve been doing her laundry because cancer has gotten to her and made her weak.”

Dondero said she appreciates how much Howerton prays, especially for her; while Howerton feels that Dondero is a nice person overall, deserving her every prayer.

“I love her,” said Dondero.

Howerton was quick to second the sentiment.

The black-and-white cat with two names watched from the back lawn, sharing the same afternoon as the roommates, purring the contentment of one who knows where her home is.