Thalia was studying to become a doctor in Cuba when speaking out against their government on her school’s campus put her at risk of imprisonment. At 21, she made the heartbreaking choice to leave everything behind, including her parents, and start over in the United States, arriving alone with nothing but her asylum status and her faith.
She was determined to find work, but struggled to find openings while the language barrier made every door harder to open. Then, on an afternoon when she was running low on hope, walking along a highway in the full heat of summer, a stranger pulled over. He asked if she was okay. She told him she was searching for a job. He brought her to the restaurant where he worked, she applied on the spot, and started the very next day.
After years of working hard and building a new life for herself, she began a relationship she hoped would bring even more happiness and stability to her world. It did anything but. Her partner controlled her income, emotionally abused her, and used her asylum status as a threat to make her feel that leaving him would cost her everything she had fought to build in this country. The abuse was invisible to outsiders, as coercive control often is. (Learn more below).
“I remember that I prayed to God a lot, and I told him, God, I don’t care if you get me out of here in barefoot, get me out of here.”
And that’s exactly what happened. After a disagreement, he abruptly kicked her out of his house.
“I was no shoes, no clothes. Nothing. It was one of the coldest days of the year. And I started to cry because I didn’t know what [would] happen or if I would be able to do it by myself. But, if you are praying for something, you need to be strong,” Thalia recalls.
With nowhere to go, she went to her employer and quietly asked if she could sleep in her car in their parking lot. Asking for help didn’t come naturally. Her whole life had taught her to figure things out alone. But her coworkers did not let her sleep in her car. They rallied, raising money to cover a temporary hotel stay, and someone pointed her toward Good Sam.
Good Sam became more than housing for Thalia. After years of silently carrying the weight of her hardships alone to shield her parents from worry, she found herself slowly opening up to staff. It made her feel less alone in a way she hadn’t expected or even knew she needed.
Since entering our program, she has continued building. Excelling at work, she has earned a path toward promotion, and started a matched savings account with her sights set on her first apartment. She is also very close to a milestone years in the making: permanent residency. The application fees run over $2,000, and saving that amount has been one of her biggest goals since arriving at Good Sam. After that, she is excited to start nursing school and begin a career where she can serve others.
Through it all, Thalia’s resiliance has never waivered, even when life threw her yet another challenge. A diagnosis: stage 4 cancer. She is meeting it the way she meets everything, with a faith that hard things don’t last forever and a belief that, in her words, “a bad day is not a bad life.”
When asked what she would say to the people who support Good Sam and make our work possible, Thalia didn’t hesitate.
“Thank you is not enough. Because of them, I’m here. You come here with nothing, and you leave with everything.”
Together, we can help neighbors like Thalia achieve their dreams.
Your support helps make new beginnings possible. Partner with us this July during our Double Your Good campaign to help neighbors facing homelessness reach stability and find hope.
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A Deeper Look: The Trap of Coercive Control
Many people think of abuse as something physical. But for millions of people, the harm they experience leaves no bruises. It shows up instead as a slow, steady loss of freedom, confidence, and sense of self. This is coercive control, an abusive pattern in a relationship where one partner uses fear, manipulation, and control to make the other feel completely dependent and stuck.
Coercive control looks different in each relationship, but it tends to show up through a few recognizable patterns:
Economic Abuse
Controlling income, blocking employment, creating financial dependency so leaving feels impossible.
Emotional Abuse
Humiliation, constant criticism, gaslighting, and manipulation that destroy a person's confidence and self-trust.
Isolation
Cutting off contact with friends and family, making the victim entirely dependent on the abuser for connection.
Monitoring & Surveillance
Monitoring phone, location, and daily movements to maintain constant control and create fear.
Threats
Threats of harm to the victim, their children, family members, or immigration status to prevent them from leaving or seeking help.
Control
Dictating what they wear, eat, or how they spend time. Setting rigid "rules" for the household with punishment for breaking them
This kind of abuse does not happen all at once. It chips away, quietly and steadily, at everything a person would need to feel safe enough to leave: their income, their other relationships and support system, their confidence, and their belief that help is available to them. By the time someone is desperate to leave the situation, they feel completely trapped. Like there is nothing left to leave with. That feeling is not imaginary. It was the goal.
This is where organizations like Good Sam become lifelines. For survivors whose financial stability, housing, and confidence have been systematically stripped away, having access to safe housing and support can be the difference between staying trapped in an abusive situation and finally being able to leave it.
Your gift can help even more people find hope!
Thalia’s journey is just one example of the lives being transformed every day at Good Sam because someone like you chose to give. Thank you for caring for our neighbors facing homelessness in our communities.
