Homelessness Awareness Month: How Sudden Changes Push People Over the Edge

By Kim McCorkle, HomeAid Austin Development and Outreach Director

The old saying goes, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." But what happens when life doesn’t give you lemons—when it takes away your home, your stability, even your sense of self?

I had a brother who was homeless on and off for about 20 years before he passed away. What I saw in his journey was something that seemed gradual at first—a friend introduced him to drugs. But once that introduction happened, the change was so great, so fast, and so sad. He tried to rehab three times with the support of his family, and it never seemed to take. He was caught in a quiet, invisible disaster no one saw coming.

There is no way to spin sudden homelessness into something sweet and refreshing. Yet this is the reality thousands of people face every year, not because of poor choices or lack of effort, but because of sudden, catastrophic events that strip away everything in an instant.

July 4th floods revealed a painful truth: the line between housing and homelessness can disappear in a single night.

We often think of homelessness as the result of long-term struggles—chronic unemployment, substance abuse, or mental illness. While these factors play a role, the reality is that many people become homeless not through gradual decline, but through sudden, unexpected life events that push them over the edge when there is no safety net to catch them.

My brother tried. He went to rehab. He had family support. But once homelessness takes hold, the barriers to getting back become almost insurmountable. Where do you keep your medication? How do you get to appointments? How do you stay clean for job interviews? How do you rebuild it when you have lost everything, including yourself?

Before working in this field, I believed in harmful stereotypes about homeless people. Meeting them, hearing their stories, understanding the complex web of circumstances that led them to the streets—that changed everything. Every person experiencing homelessness has a story. Many of them were once successful, employed, housed, and loved. They were someone's brother, sister, parent, child. For every person displaced by floods, there are countless others displaced by medical bills, job losses, family crises, addiction, and violence. Their disasters were just quieter, less visible, and easier for the rest of us to ignore or judge.

We are all more fragile than we think. The difference between stability and homelessness often comes down to timing, luck, and whether a safety net is there when we fall. At HomeAid Austin, we believe in being that safety net. 

The path to homelessness can be as short as one catastrophic night—or one catastrophic introduction to drugs. Our path to helping people find stability again should be just as swift and filled with the same urgency and compassion we show when disaster strikes. My brother deserved that chance. Everyone experiencing homelessness deserves that chance.