Marysville native reconnects with daughter
Elizabeth Hampson woke up one day and said it was time for a change.
It was time to wean herself off a methamphetamine addiction, find a job, a place to live and get her pregnant daughter back, who had been relocated by child protective services in October of 2019.
“I was tired of living this way,” Hampson said.
The process of restarting her life began by going to 14Forward in Marysville to find temporary housing away from the river bottoms. At that point, Hampson received a rehousing grant from the Salvation Army to begin the process of finding a permanent home.
“You have to be considered homeless to qualify for the grant,” said Hampson, 37 and a Marysville native. “(The grant) helps pay your rent and moving costs for six months. The first two months they pay 100 percent of your rent.”
As for getting clean and beginning the process of reconnecting with her 17-year-old daughter, Alexandria Johnson, Hampson said it wasn’t easy and there were a few hiccups along the way.
She had to submit to random drug tests every couple weeks. A failure to comply, Hampson said, meant a failed test.
“I didn’t start complying until March (of 2020),” Hampson said. “Now I am 270 days clean.”
Hampson is now gainfully employed part-time with Dollar
Tree in Yuba City, has her own place that she
shares with her family of five in Olivehurst and, most important, she is a first-time grandmother to Elias.
“There were times I wanted to give up (but) I told my daughter I would be a better grandmother than I was a mother,” Hampson said.
Hampson said through everything over the course of the last year there was one person in her corner from the get-go: Her boyfriend Matthew Pace.
“He was very supportive,” Hampson
said. “(When) most would have taken off he stayed right there at the river to take care of our stuff and the dog.”
It was perseverance that eventually reconnected the mother and daughter.
Johnson said she never lost hope throughout the last 13 months, even recalling that “I will be with my mom someday.”
Johnson said Hampson deserves all the credit.
“I was proud of her because she finally got clean and (into) her own place.”