HUFFINGTON
11.11.12
NO WAY OUT
her mental well-being, along the
way landing in Chattanooga.
She has been clean in recent
years, she says, and she is intent on
achieving a modest form of self-sufficiency, a station centered on one
key element — a steady paycheck.
“My dream is just to have an
apartment,” she says, “a place
somewhere where I can lock a
door, and I don’t have to worry
about someone coming in and
stealing my clothes. I’m just try-
ing to get myself stable again.
I’d be satisfied with a one-room
shack, as long as it’s got a door
that could lock.”
But even that aspiration felt beyond her as she trudged to staffing
offices looking for work — nearly
any sort of work.
“There’s all kinds of things I
can do,” Smith says, rattling off
the ways she has earned a paycheck — driving a forklift, operating factory machinery, mopping
floors, and installing Internet service. But one thing she could not
do kept tripping her up. She could
Smith on the
move, wary
of cars as
her route to
work has no
sidewalks.