For years, Marylyn Johnson has been a familiar face at a Dorchester Head Start program. Known affectionately as “Mema,” the 75-year-old spends her days helping care for preschoolers through the Foster Grandparent Program run by Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD). Parents know her by name, as she said children talk about her when they go home.
“I’ve got so many parents lately come to the door dropping off their kids asking the teachers who is Mema? Now everybody knows, the girl in purple,” Johnson said with a laugh. “I just love babies. I don’t care whose they are.”
But while Johnson spends her days providing comfort and stability to children, she has been struggling to find housing of her own.
Johnson said she lost her housing after what she described as an administrative issue that resulted her housing voucher being terminated.
“By the time I got back home, the padlock was on the door,” Johnson recalled. “A big old note, ‘stay off the premises.’”
She said many of her belongings, including her mattress and box spring, were thrown away.
Now, Johnson rents a room while continuing to search for a more permanent place to live. She says she’s also paying to store many of her possessions in U-Haul storage units.
“Basically now, it’s like I’m paying for three U-Haul units,” she said. “That’s my Social Security check right there.”
Despite the setback, Johnson has remained committed to the children she works with.
She often arrives before sunrise, eager to step into the child care center as soon as the doors open.
Finding affordable housing has proven difficult. Johnson said some housing providers have told her the wait for an available unit could be anywhere from two to five years.
“It’s a long haul,” she said.
Like many seniors living on fixed incomes, Johnson says rising rents and the increasing cost of living have made it harder to get by.
“I’ve been working for years, two or three jobs just keep myself afloat,” she said. “Especially after I lost my husband things are hard out here now because everything just shot up,” she said. “Every year it’s an increase.”
Still, she remains hopeful.
“I just keep saying. Something is gonna come my way soon. I just gotta keep patient. And them babies keep my mind off of it. I can’t worry about my problems I want to be here with the babies,” Johnson said. “I’m still putting in applications. Something’s gonna give. I’m gonna be alright.”
NBC10 Boston connected with Johnson through ABCD, a nonprofit that helps people throughout Greater Boston access services including housing assistance, food support, fuel assistance and employment resources.
The organization says it is seeing growing demand for help as many families and individuals continue to struggle with affordability challenges.
“Working families, more and more are seeking our help,” said Sharon Scott Chandler, President and CEO of ABCD. “It always was the case, but we’re seeing more people who I think are in financial crisis and weren’t in financial crisis last year. So, it’s a different face of economic hardship. It is a broader swath of people who are needing to juggle basic necessities.”
ABCD encourages anyone who needs assistance to contact one of its neighborhood service centers and resource offices across Massachusetts.
“Don’t deal with this alone,” said Scott Chandler. “There is help for everyone. Just because you worked all your life does not mean that you don’t need some assistance or you couldn’t use some assistance. Sometimes it’s temporary. Sometimes it’s long-term, but having a little bit of help goes a long way, not only for people’s immediate circumstance, but for their mental health, because we know that it’s stressful to work hard and not be able to afford the basic needs for you and your family.”