Aubrey Parks spent years helping others find direction as a life coach, but after COVID hit, her own life was the one thrown off course, leaving her without stable housing.
“I was losing a lot of my income and really struggling. I had no place to go, and I had no money,” said Parks.
For months on the East Coast, she couch-surfed, stayed in motels, Airbnbs, and short-term housing.
“I had to stay at the motel, and then from there I was bouncing around different places. I was staying in Airbnbs, motels. I was staying at people’s places for a short period of time,” Parks said.
She survived it, but it changed her.
“There have been super, super dark days where I didn’t want to keep going, but I have people who love me. I have a son. I have my two cats. I know if something had happened to me, they wouldn’t be happy,” Parks said.
Now, she says she’s finally in a place where she feels a bit more grounded and able to think about the future instead of just the next place to sleep.
“I’m a little bit more stable now. This is giving me the opportunity to try to start focusing on my goals and rebuild. I would love to get a car. It’s really hard to get around,” Parks said.
Still, rebuilding hasn’t shielded her from the criticism she faces simply for asking for help.
“When I have shared my story, you see people firing back, like ‘get a job,’ which is unfair because they don’t know people’s stories. They don’t know how hard we’ve worked and that there are situations beyond our control,” Parks said.
She’s rebuilding piece by piece. But she hopes her story makes us wonder: how different would things look if we chose empathy first?
