Even though parents work 40 hours or more a week and try to make sure every bill is taken care of when it needs to be paid, there are things that can happen that can cause bills to get behind. In many families, people can also communicate with each other and get along for the most part or work out their differences if they do have a problem that arises. If something negative does happen, it can tear a family apart aside from simply not getting the bills paid. When Shannon Loveless had emergencies arise that she didn’t know how to bounce back from, her family ended up needing to live in their van in a wooded area.
Since the family had to stay in such a small space, they weren’t able to take many of the belongings that they had in their home. They had to carefully choose what to keep and unfortunately had to leave some of their cherished possessions behind. The family struggled each day to simply make it to the next. They didn’t know where they were going to get food, how they were going to stay clean, or where they were going to cook. Fortunately, Shannon found space behind a Walmart in her town where she could park her van. This meant that they would at least be safe instead of being in a parking lot or in an area with a lot of traffic. Shannon tried to do everything that she could in order to provide for her family and get the basics that her children needed.
As the day turned to night, Shannon and her children would make a camp and hide so that no one would find them as she feared that someone would report her. The children were able to sleep in the van most of the time while Shannon watched over them from outside after a long day of asking people for food or money to help her children. When two officers found Shannon and her children, she was afraid that she would be arrested because she didn’t have positive experiences with officers in the past. However, Officers Tim Yee and Johnny Le wanted to help the family in any way that they could. After meeting Shannon and her children, the officers got a few donations of clothes and other items to give to the family so that they could change clothes. They also gave the children a few toys. After talking to Shannon about her situation, the officers helped her by paying for a motel room for a few weeks so that the children would have somewhere safe to stay and so that Shannon would be able to find a job and get back on her feet.
