“After I fell behind in my rent, I got to the point where I didn’t even want to go home to my apartment,” said Bronx resident Carolina P. “I felt like I was somehow in the wrong even though I had done everything I could to prevent this from happening.”

Carolina’s financial problems and her subsequent battle to stay in her apartment with her seven-year-old daughter started when she left her job as associate editor of a publishing company. “As a single mom, the heavy travel schedule did not work out for me.” She began freelancing, but found that freelance income just wasn’t reliable. “At this point, I was three months late in my rent.  I had paid my landlord what I could each month, but not the full amount. Even though I finally found a full-time job in August of 2008, I couldn’t catch up. My landlord refused my partial payments and started eviction proceedings in December.”

Now frantic to preserve her home, Carolina started doing research to find an agency that could help her. “But they all required multiple meetings before they did anything and made things very complicated and time consuming,” she said. “I was afraid to take time from my new job and didn’t know what to do.”

Carolina finally found the help she needed when she was referred to The Bridge Fund. “Within a week,” she said. “They provided me with a loan of $1,918. With the partial payments I had already given my landlord, that brought my rent completely up-to-date.”

Carolina said she is extremely grateful to The Bridge Fund and happy to share her story. “The Bridge Fund made things simple and worked very fast. The Bridge Fund was there when I needed them and we are back on track.”