It’s a little after 6 a.m. on a Tuesday, and Teresa Flax of Evansville is making breakfast for her family.
She’s got sausage and eggs cooking, bread toasting, and fruit, all being assembled for her two sons and her nephew, of whom she has guardianship.
With two teens and a 9-year-old in the small townhouse, they need to be strategic about who gets to use the bathroom in the morning.
“We might be staggering by the hour, so they get up first, get ready, get out the bathroom so we can get in there,” Flax said. “Then it's our turn, because we leave out the door at the same time.”
Flax is not only celebrating her 44th birthday, but also achievements like repairing her credit, getting her degree and continuing her education, holding down a job and getting her license back — a new reality made possible with public wraparound services.
She is living in income-based housing through the Evansville Housing Authority (EHA) which has provided stability. But during the pandemic, she was at risk of being homeless — at risk of joining the 500 or so individuals who are unhoused in the Evansville area at any given time.
“I was in between living with my niece and finding my own place,” she said. She also had her sons De’len, who was 4 at the time, and Joseph Brown Jr., who was about 12. “They've been on this journey, the full ride.”
She was in the midst of trying to get off someone else's couch and get her own. “So in 2020 that's when the shift started for me,” she said.
That "shift" was through EHA programs. Flax was waitlisted a year, but the EHA provided income-based housing, and an application to the Indiana Family Self Sufficiency Program (FSS).
EHA president and CEO Rick Moore said the FSS is a five-year contract that a family signs with the EHA.
“Over the five years a family sets goals, if it is literacy, if it is a high school equivalency, whatever it is, they set these goals over a five year period with the idea that at the end of the five year period they will become self-sufficient,” Moore said. “So there's a lot of financial advisement, cleaning up past debt and those kinds of things.”
Flax’ goals were rebuilding her credit, getting her driver’s license back, returning to school and graduate, starting her own business and becoming a first-time homebuyer.
Moore said the apartment itself isn’t always the total answer. “Some families need some wraparound services,” he said.
Flax said food and housing, financial literacy, and applicable caseworkers were all provided as part of the program. Maybe most importantly, they got her set up at Ivy Tech Community College.
“I became the first of my eight siblings to walk across the stage in 2025 at Ivy Tech Community College, so that just changed everything for me,” she said. “So education is key, and I just try to instill that in my kids as well. So we need it. We need it.”
She’s pursuing another degree — her semester started that same morning with a Microsoft technical course.
At Ivy Tech, she won the 2024 entrepreneurship pitch contest for a traveling coat closet for the homeless. The only goal she hasn’t hit is buying her own home.
But the program has help for that too. Moore said rent paid over a certain amount is put into an escrow account.
“As you're paying and working through the project, we escrow all of that money, and at the end of your when you graduate, you receive that money back in cash, a check. And you can use that for home ownership opportunities. You can buy cars. It's money that you've earned through the program.”
Flax is going to use her escrow to buy a new home. While her five years have ended, she still receives counseling support for two years after.
“I took a leap of faith, and here I am, five years later, accomplishing a lot of things that I never thought I'd be able to accomplish. So it feels great.”
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