There’s no such thing as a perfect family, but ideally, children thrive when growing up in a safe and stable home.
Chasity’s childhood was just the opposite: Her parents divorced before she was 2. Her mother, an alcoholic, has been married seven times, and her father three times. Chasity was never in any one place for long. So much for stability.
And as for safety? At 14, she was sexually abused by a stepfather. Chasity begged her mom for help, but found none. “She didn’t believe me,” Chasity says today. “She took his side. Then they put me in a mental hospital for nine months.”
After that, Chasity turned to drugs to numb her pain.
Fast forward about a decade. Chasity, then in her mid-20s, was a single mother of three and living at Open Arms, the women’s shelter at Kokomo Rescue Mission. But she got into some trouble and was asked to leave. With no place to go, Chasity did what she thought best for her children: “I called CPS (Child Protective Services) and told them to take my kids, so they had somewhere to stay where they were safe, warm and well-fed.” It’s a decision she regrets to this day.
Broken, Chasity turned to harder drugs and lived on the streets. She robbed people to support her addiction. She lied to people. She ruined relationships. Adding to her misery: CPS terminated her rights to her children.
In July 2018, Chasity was arrested for drug dealing and other charges. She was sentenced to 7.5 years. It might’ve been just the wake-up call Chasity needed …
While in prison, Chasity decided to turn her life around. She dove into recovery. She took classes and got her GED. She was such a model inmate that she was released after three years — less than half her sentence.
Upon release in 2021, she returned to Open Arms where she had been inappropriate for services years before. Chasity knew it was exactly where she needed to be. “I knew it was a safe place,” she says. “I knew the structure. I knew the rules. I knew I would have accountability, and I knew I would learn patience.”
Chasity has been sober for almost four years — since her 2018 arrest. She wants to keep it that way, even when she moves out on her own. She hopes to restore a relationship with her children, but for legal reasons, she can’t try to contact them till they’re 18. (They’re currently 15, 14 and 11.)
In the meantime, Chasity is working a steady job and looking to get her own place. And she knows that once she leaves, she can reach out to Open Arms for help at any time.
“I’m blessed to have Open Arms in my life,” she says. “I’m blessed by the staff and everything they do.”
Thank you for blessing people in need, like Chasity, and giving them an opportunity for new life.