At 25 years old, Khyisha Taylor was a single mother of three working odd jobs to support her family. Her youngest child was 6 years old at the time, and homeownership and family vacations were luxuries pushed aside in favor of putting food on the table and keeping a roof over her children’s head. A relative told Taylor about the Family Self-Sufficiency program offered through AHFC. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, Taylor applied and began the process of taking control of her life, her finances and her future.
Joining the program was easy. What followed - taking a couple of career development classes, holding down a job and making rent payments on time - were the real challenges Taylor faced. Through regular monthly check-ins with her AHFC coach and because of her own hard work and commitment, Taylor began to accomplish some of the goals she set for herself. “The incentive of being able to put some of the money I earned back into savings was helpful,” Taylor said. “And so was knowing that in the long run it would be beneficial for my family.”
On November 1, 2014, Taylor successfully completed AHFC’s Family Self- Sufficiency program. She is now 30 years old, and her children are 11, 13 and 15. Throughout the past five years, Taylor not only met her original goals but she also achieved new ones she set along the way: she holds down a job as a customer service representative at Alaska Dispatch News (formerly Anchorage Daily News), paid down her debt, raised her credit score from the mid-500s to the high 600s and purchased a car.
The incentive? Taylor put a percentage of her rent payment aside each month, and she is now the recipient of a check in the amount of $24,110. Suddenly, a family vacation and home ownership are not such a distant dream. “I plan on using that money to take my kids to Disneyland and as a down payment on a home,” Taylor said.
To learn more about AHFC’s Family Self-Sufficiency program click HERE.
