Staten Island senior Willie-Mae R. thought she would be out of work for only a few days following a breast cancer biopsy, but she was wrong.

“I’m a diabetic, and the incision got infected,” she said. “I couldn’t go back to my job as administrative aide with the police department but I had some money put aside and thought I would be okay.”

All told, Willie-Mae ended up being out of work for four months. She delayed filing for disability right away and started falling behind in her rent.

“By this time, I owed four months’ back rent and got a dispossess notice from my landlord,” she said. “Even though I had lived in the same apartment for a long time and had always been a reliable tenant, it didn’t count. I had two months’ rent, but they wanted it all at once.”

Willie-Mae’s employer put her in touch with The Bridge Fund. “They saved my life,” she said. “I thought I was going to be homeless. There aren’t words to tell you how frightened I was. I tossed and turned all night, every night.”

The Bridge Fund worked with Willie-Mae’s landlord to resolve her problems with the rental arrears. The fund provided an interest-free loan for $1,095 for the two months’ rent Willie-Mae could not provide, put her on a monthly budget plan, and the landlord withdrew eviction proceedings.

Willie-Mae is now back at work but she said, “I take nothing for granted any more. I am just grateful that The Bridge Fund helped me in my time of need and will always remember what they did for me.”