Crossroads—2026-08-05 (Patreon)

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Chapter 3.1.54: NEW LIFE by Melissa Gaines

A decade ago, I would have said my life was going well. I was married to a wonderful man named Jordan Gaines. I had a job I loved as a kindergarten teacher in Flatbush, and we were planning to have a child.

Just as we had planned, Elijah was born in August 2019. A few months later, the life I thought I was building started to crumble.

Jordan was an ER nurse. In March 2020, just seven months after Elijah was born, he contracted COVID-19. In those early months, the danger posed by COVID-19 was anything but trivial. He fought the illness for five weeks before it took his life.

Elijah and I managed to get by on my salary for a few years as our security slowly eroded. In 2024, his routine tonsillectomy turned out not to be routine at all. A cascade of hospital bills and missed work eventually forced me to give up my apartment.

I kept going to work, but for months, Elijah and I relied on shelters and the back seat of my car for somewhere to sleep. In May 2025, I was placed in a Stop-Gap Housing unit. Stop-Gap is a program operated by the nonprofit Humanity Housing.

Then things started to change once more. Since then, I’ve gone from depending on Humanity Housing to working for it. I’ve made friends at the office, including Tom Jenkins, the man who owns all the Stop-Gap Housing units.

A few months ago, Tom began Phase II of Crossroads Apartments and arranged for Elijah and me to move into a brand-new two-bedroom unit. There was some paperwork involved, but the apartment’s fair-market rental value was treated as taxable compensation. My only direct housing cost is the additional tax I owe on that benefit.

Tom and I work closely on the Stop-Gap program. That common cause has gradually led to a comfortable friendship.

So, over the last six years, I’ve gone from a stable life through a period of bare survival and back to something that feels stable again. It feels like I’m finally stable and ready for a new life—or at least a new phase of life—to begin.

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