Monica Diaz and Pete Etheridge holding the Washington Post profile of them.

Gabi Sevilla / Twitter

By the end of next week, Monica Diaz and her partner, Pete Etheridge, will likely be settling into their first home—four walls, a door that locks—in two years.

Just weeks after a profile of the couple ran in the Washington Post that chronicled their exhausting, emotionally draining existence living in a tent outside of Union Station, a GoFundMe to support the couple has raised more than $40,000. The money—and the publicity from the Post article—has drastically changed Diaz and Etheridge’s lives on the turn of a dime, suddenly offering opportunities unthinkable just a month ago.

Sassy, their beloved brown-coated dog, got a new collar and a checkup at the vet.

Diaz got a prepaid cell phone so she would have a number to give at job interviews and to write down on apartment applications.

The couple went on a shopping trip to TJ Maxx and the Nike Factory store for interview clothes and new shoes.

As of this week, the family—Sassy included—has left the tent near Union Station, and are sleeping indoors at a motel, waiting to move into the new apartment they got through the city’s rapid re-housing program.

“I’m motivated. My motivation has skyrocketed, my self-esteem has gone up, I have drive now,” Diaz says about how her life has changed since the Post article ran and the donations started streaming in. “Now that I have help, it’s like I’m on it. I’m trying to find a job, I’m out there looking and praying every day that somebody picks me up.”

Gabriela Sevilla, a third year law student at Howard University Law School who befriended Diaz and Etheridge about a month before the Post article was published, has seen the changes firsthand. “It’s been an amazing transformation. I’ve gotten to see them really grow and be happy,” she says.

Sevilla created the GoFundMe for the couple, and has been helping them with everything from shopping trips to laundry to printing out resumes for Diaz.

It hasn’t been a completely smooth ride, however—Diaz says that it was difficult to read the article, to offer her life up that way for other people’s judgment. “To be honest with you, I did feel a little embarrassed. I did feel a little humiliated when the story hit,” she says. “I felt like I had to humiliate myself to receive help … I was out there for two years and I didn’t get any help. I was out there asking for help and no one would help.”

Even so, Diaz says she’s deeply grateful that she’s about to have a roof over her head again. “I thank God each and every day for blessing me with this,” she says.

Sevilla, who also interns at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, met the couple when she attended one of the city’s periodic “sweeps” of homeless encampments like the one where Diaz and Etheridge had set up their tent. She was there as a legal observer for WLCH, making sure police didn’t throw away or break people’s belongings.

“I just walked up to [Diaz] and asked her ‘What do you need?’ And the story started flowing from there,” Sevilla says. She was prepared with brochures and information about resources available to people experiencing homelessness in the city. But instead of simply handing out the brochures, Sevilla ended up talking to Diaz for more than an hour that day. She felt a connection, and gave Diaz her personal cell phone number and email.

“She’s another human being. She was working, trying to survive,” Sevilla says. Diaz was employed at a local fast food restaurant, but because she had lost her license in a previous encampment sweep, she worked under the table for paltry wages. She and Etheridge had fallen into homelessness after being evicted from their apartment complex in Maryland, which was in disrepair and replete with housing code violations. For months after becoming homeless, Diaz had managed to keep the job she had at Price Rite Grocery, but after a while, she was fired for poor hygiene, according to the Post. The couple hadn’t managed to get off the street in two years.

For Sevilla, there were personals parallel, too. Both she and Diaz have immigrant parents, and Sevilla was also homeless for a time after graduating from Rutgers University.

She started checking in on the couple, particularly on the days when it rained. When someone tore a hole in their tent, she bought them another one.

And then the Post article ran, and a flood of people contacted reporter Terrence McCoy about ways they could help. He directed them to Sevilla, whom he knew had a friendship with the couple.

Thus, the GoFundMe. The original fundraising goal, Sevilla says, was $2,500, enough for a security deposit and one month’s rent. The morning after she created the page, she was shocked to find that they had blown past the goal, and were already at $4,000. Then $10,000. Then $34,000. Then $41,000.

Now, the couple has enough security to breathe and plan their next move. Diaz is already interviewing for jobs. They have an apartment secured. They’re planning out doctor’s appointments for urgent health problems they’ve had to put on the backburner for years, Sevilla says.

For Sevilla, it’s been moving and satisfying to watch Diaz and Etheridge’s lives transform. She has grown particularly close to Diaz, whom she says is “like a sister to me.”

“We went and got our hair done together, we’ve done sisterly things together. We joke, we laugh together,” Sevilla says. “She’s going to be in my life forever.”

For Diaz, the feeling is mutual.

“Ever since [the day we met, Gabi] has been in my corner, and ever since that day, she’s been the biggest angel ever,” Diaz says. “I don’t know where I would be if Gabi wasn’t in my corner.”

Filed Under: chronic homelessness, family homelessness, homelessness,