TAMPA, Fla. — Days before Christmas, Linda Ealy found herself standing in a kitchen that she prayed for.
"All I could say was 'Thank God. Thank God' every day," she said, "When I first opened the door and looked in, I just cried."
She is finally home for the holidays, with her dog Smokey, after struggling with homelessness for nearly two years.
"First of all it was depressing, you know that, because you don't know when you're next meal is going to come or when you're going to be able to have your own," she said.
Ealy spent the last year of her journey at the Tampa Hope "Tent City," run by Catholic Charities Diocese of St. Petersburg.
Leaders with the organization say in addition to providing temporary housing, they worked hard to get Linda connected to a permanent home.
"It means the world for folks, especially [around] the holidays like you said, to get into a place in time for holidays," said Lou Ricardo, the Director of Marketing and Donor Relations.
And he adds that they're looking to expand their services.
"We're going to build out the site we're going to have a kitchen, we'll make our own meals, we'll have salons. It'll be a mini city," said Ricardo.
And as for Linda, she says her goal is to keep her home, far beyond the holiday season.
"I want to always have my own from now on," he said.
Since expanding their services with the Tampa Hope program in December of 2021, Ricardo says they've had about 300 people come to them for help. To date, they've placed 130 of them into permanent housing, but they're hoping to do so much more.
Catholic Charities is hoping to expand its current tent site from 125 units to 300. The majority of that difference will be made up of "Hope Cottages" which function like mini mobile homes. To learn more about their mission to build those, click here.
If you're in need of assistance, you can text "tampahope" to 91999, or you can click here.
