From Shelter to Resilience: Finding Strength in Adversity This past year was hard for me, I was living in a shelter, because I didn’t have a safe place to go to. I went to a residential longer-term housing facility. It was a private and safe place for women and children. From a 5 bedroom house I went to a small bunk bed with a drawer that had a key and a lock. You really learn a lot about yourself – I learned that I was able to quickly adapt to my surroundings. I set up my bed, arranged all my personal things and put away my few important documents in the drawer directly below my bunk bed. Then I sat and waited. I waited for things to fall into place so I could leave the shelter. The first couple of days went by smooth but soon the anxiety of waiting for something to happen started to make me feel trapped and helpless.