Jeavette lives in one of Clare Housing’s community-based care homes. For her, home is safety. Home is the ability to sit in her comfy chair, turn on the TV, and feel at peace. She calls herself a “homebody.” After years of instability, having a place where she can simply exist is everything.
Jeavette moved from Illinois to Minnesota because her health was slipping, and she needed help managing her HIV care. Instead of stability, she found herself in a house where her Social Security checks were stolen, and her basic needs were ignored. She moved out of the situation, trying to rebuild, but even then, her home didn’t feel like hers. She let two younger cousins live with her, and the constant noise, indoor smoking, and people coming and going made her feel unsafe in her own space.
With a growing number of health challenges, she moved into a nursing home. Her health started to improve but she was not happy living in that setting. A caseworker told her about Clare Housing, another housing option that would offer services to help manage her HIV care. Jeavette decided to give that a try, and she has lived with Clare Housing for almost 20 years!
Jeavette says Clare Housing has provided more opportunities for her beyond housing, healthcare, and hot meals. She has been supported in pursuing her goal of becoming employed and meets with her job coach every Friday. She is also enrolled with an adult rehabilitative mental health services (ARHMS) worker who helps her with personal tasks like getting out of the house, going shopping, and going to the library each week.
Jeavette says that city noise in Uptown has increased over the years, but her home, Agape Dos, is usually able to give her some of the refuge she needs. Her lead caregiver, Hannah, says Jeavette enjoys passing the time by reading a good book.
“Jeavette loves her audio books and romance novels so much that she has recently begun writing her own,” Hannah says. “She’s also good at crushing Clare Housing staff at card games!”
Outside of her love of literature, Jeavette is a big fan of cinema. Jeavette used to treat herself to a movie every Friday evening, but with rising costs of living, that has reduced to only once or twice a month.
“If I’m having a bad day, the movies will raise my mood so much...if the movie is good,” Jeavette says. “Now, if it’s a bad movie, then my day will go back down. But next week, if I go to the movies again, it might be better.”
Jeavette is just one of the nearly 500 people that Clare Housing serves here in Minnesota. We are grateful that she took the time to talk about her life with us recently, and we hope she gets to see another good movie sometime soon.
