We all deserve to be home and amongst loved ones for the holidays. For Albina St. Supportive Housing resident, Lorelei, this year—she will have both.

Lorelei is a child of residential school survivors, and her upbringing was coloured darkly by generational trauma.

“My mother kicked me out when I was 12,” she says. “I don’t know what I ever did to her, but she just did not love me.”

Lorelei took up drugs at a young age, and by the time she had her children she was already deeply entrenched in addiction. Her son’s father left before his first birthday and she lost custody as she was not able to provide a stable home at the time.

She remembers visiting her children while they lived in foster care, and despite her own challenges, spending hours baking for them. Her apple pies (with their names carved into the crust) were a point of particular pride.

But, away from her children, her addiction still had a hold on her life. She became estranged from some of her children. And as her youngest son aged out of foster care and became an adult, she was dismayed to see him fall into the same patterns as she had.

“Watching your son go from a sweet little boy to an intravenous drug user—it was heartbreaking.”

Without the right tools, Lorelei didn’t know how to help herself or her son. For many years, nothing changed.

Until one day, when they were out together and she heard him screaming for her. He had gone off to smoke with a friend and was witnessing his friend overdose in front of their eyes. Though Lorelei primarily uses a wheelchair due to hip injuries, she pushed herself out in this moment and began chest compressions. Thanks to her quick action, and the arrival of paramedics moments later, the young man survived.

She thought of herself and her son in this moment and she was scared.

She didn’t want to ever feel this fear again. She knew a change needed to happen.

From that day on, they both felt more committed to finding sobriety and finally reached out to organizations they knew could support them. She first reached out to Umbrella Society who connected her to Our Place.

Here, she found a home.

Lorelei is now a resident at Albina St. Supportive Housing, where she has been able to maintain her sobriety and start focusing on her future. She accesses services like meals, counseling, recovery support, and LEAP (Life skills, Employment readiness, and Awareness Program). She works on the building’s clean team and is inspired to keep strengthening the community in the building herself by starting a Friday night craft night. Her son is also sober, and her children visit her at the building. She has even reconnected with her six (going on seven!) grandchildren.

“I do it all for my children and grandchildren now.”

And her community isn’t restricted to just Albina St. She also visits the Our Place Community Centre at least twice a week for the 55+ group meetings. Several times, she has attended memorials for friends who have passed that would otherwise not have had a service.

“Without OPS and my friends here, I wouldn’t be as far as I am today,” she says.

And what’s next on the pathway for Lorelei? She hopes to go back to school and attend classes at Camosun to pursue a career working with children of a similar age as her own grandkids.

But, first—she’ll be getting into her kitchen at Albina St. so she can make sure they all have their own pies, baked with love, from their grandma, for the holidays.