In the third to last row of a chapel in Bellevue, a young woman sits struggling with her two year-old daughter and 16-month-old son. She looks nearly indistinguishable from the other families sitting around her, attending children as they try to listen to the speaker at the pulpit.

Two years ago, that woman, Casi Jackson, was living on the street, a single mother with another child on the way. She had escaped domestic violence, but still struggled with the vices of a life born in a jail, bouncing through foster homes and a teenage pregnancy. Today she has an apartment, has just started college and – most important to her – is able to care for her two children in a stable environment that she lacked as a youth.

This is Casi’s story

Casi Jackson’s success story is uncommon. Joe Ingram, of Vets Edge, a grass-roots homeless shelter, has seen thousands of young women like Jackson in his years on the street. Ingram, a veteran, was homeless himself for many years. Today he is one of the few that officials call to speak with homeless men and women. He takes calls 24-hours-a-day.

“When no one qualifies for any of the programs, I get them,” he said.

Ingram met Jackson four years ago when she and her daughter were moving from shelter to cardboard box to a tent.

“Housing is the foundation for anyone,” Ingram explained, adding that it brings stability that isn’t available otherwise.

Jackson, though, received a lucky break when she got housing through the YMCA. “She won a lottery, literally,” Ingram said. The YMCA program gave Jackson a temporary living arrangement as she struggled to gain control of her life.

Ingram recalls his frustration at Jackson’s choices during that critical period.

“I’d go over and first she had one, then two, then a bunch of homeless people living at her place.” Ingram’s issue wasn’t with Jackson lending a helping hand, it was with the influences those ‘guests’ brought with them.

“To break a cycle, you have to break with the people,” Ingram said.

“I didn’t want to leave my friends,” Jackson related, her voice soft, but firm. “But I couldn’t provide the right environment for my children until I made tough choices.”

“Not everyone can do that,” Ingram said. “When people are in crisis, they fall back to what they know and what’s comfortable.”

A turning point came when Jackson refused to turn to alcohol or drugs when she faced each crisis. She stayed clean, eventually weaning herself off all her vices, including cigarettes.

“That was the hardest part,” Jackson recalled. Like her daughter, Tatiana, her son was born with medical issues that meant frequent visits and extended stays at the hospital. “At the hospital, all the parents would gather in the smoking section, talking and supporting one another.”

To stop smoking meant losing that camaraderie that she relied upon. Once her son got out of the hospital, it was easier to move forward.

Ingram believes Jackson’s life might have eventually drifted back to the streets had it not been for a knock on her door last May from two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Ingram credits the members of the local church with providing his friend with a stability that she’d lacked.

“What I saw amazed me,” said the formerly homeless veteran.

Members of the congregation came together “to help Casi and her children in every way,” said John Rex, the Bishop of the Cougar Mountain Ward in Bellevue.

One woman in particular, Julie Nelson, opened Bellevue home to Jackson. Nelson, an artist, “essentially became a surrogate mother,” Rex recalled, describing how she singly-handedly coordinated Jackson’s medical appointments, ferried her to the hospital, provided food and clothing and, he recalled with admiration, how her two teenage sons found a new calling as they provided daycare and support for Jackson’s children.

In the many months that followed, Rex doesn’t recall a single complaint or wince at the intrusion that happened in Nelson’s home.

“It touched Casi, and it touched every member of our congregation,” Rex said.

What was impressive to Ingram is that he found Nelson’s family wasn’t the only one. The assistance that began with him continued and is maintained to this day by strangers who have now become what Jackson considers her own “ward family.”

Rex says he didn’t provide a plan for his members to follow. “It was sort of organic,” he said, starting with Nelson, then extended to visiting teachers that came by to check on her family.

“They pass this notion of service to their kids,” Ingram said with amazement, then he laughs. “Families are cool.”

Jackson is now finding the capacity to give back and has become a member of a committee that plans activities for the church.

“I love being able to create events help others,” she says.

By her example, Jackson is teaching another generation, her own children.

Sarah Gerdes lives in Bellevue.