Anne Marie Sammon, 48

Anne Marie Sammon’s first experience with homelessness came at 16 years old when the Niagara Falls native found herself living at the local YWCA after leaving home.

“Essentially I was there because my mom sacrificed my relationship so she could be with her boyfriend,” she said.

She made her way through high school, attended college, became an early childhood educator and moved out on her own.

“I always had my head on straight,” Sammon added.

She took on two child care jobs at the Y in Niagara Falls at which

she had previously lived before going on to work at the women’s residence there.

After seven years, she left to manage a call centre, which she did for another 10 years until the company closed in 2008.

A desire to go back to school brought Sammon to Hamilton, where she moved into the Hamilton YWCA before finding Good Shepherd through a neighbour.

“I might not even be alive right now,” without Good Shepherd, she said.

Sammon said she has lived with mental health issues, including major depressive and anxiety disorders and OCD, since she was a child, something she calls an “inconvenient truth.”

“I never received the proper help that I needed,” she noted, adding she only started accessing mental health treatment when she moved to Hamilton in 2009.

With the help of Good Shepherd, Sammon found an apartment near Hamilton General Hospital where she’s lived for the past five years.

Being part of the Women’s Housing Planning Collaborative is an important part of her life, along with her passion for mental health, she said.

Through her past work and her own experiences, the key thing she said she has discovered is that any woman can experience homelessness at any time.

“No one is immune,” she said. “It can happen in the blink of an eye.”