Courtney Pankey said she was taking her 5-year-old son, Cypris, and 3-year-old daughter, Alisa, out for a bite to eat late last summer when it happened.
“My son asked me why we had to keep going from place to place all the time,” said the 25-year-old Rhea County native. “All I could think to say to him was, ‘Mama’s trying, baby. Mama’s trying.’ Later, after I put them to bed, I just started crying. My son’s just at the age where he understands some of what’s going on, but I wasn’t expecting that.”
Pankey said by mid-September, she and her kids had been homeless for about a year, paying friends and family for rooms when she could.
“I worked the whole time,” she said, “but I just couldn’t make enough to get a place. Waitresses don’t make that much, and you can’t count on tips.”
Pankey said it crossed a line for her when her son asked his question. She called the United Way of Rhea County and got help from the Times Free Press Neediest Cases Fund.