People of EarnIn: Alya Carillo

Alya has been through her fair share of struggles in life which is why she’s worked so hard to change her situation. Even in her hardship, Alya still maintains a positive attitude and a great outlook on life. Read more about her journey:

"When I was around middle school to high school, there were times when my mom and I were homeless so I know what it feels like to not have anything, living in a car as our home. I don't want to go back to that. I don't want my mom to go back to that. It was pretty tough. Sometimes I just wouldn't go to school because I was so tired. I knew the importance of education, but my mom was caring enough to understand. It's tough. We were going through it. She was working two jobs and then she had to have knee surgery so they fired her from one of her jobs. My dad hasn’t really been in the picture. He was kind of there every once in a while, but my parents were divorced so I don't want that for my future. If I have kids, I don’t want them to feel the same thing I felt.

Right now, my boyfriend and I live with my mother and grandmother. Funds are usually pretty tight since me and my mom are the only ones working. It's a bit stressful and I’m always worried whether I’m going to have enough or if I’m going to be able to make it. Even though we live in income based housing, our rent is still kind of high. Don't get me wrong, we enjoy our space, but it's pretty tough when it's just two people out of four working. EarnIn helps a lot though, especially when I only have 10 miles left on my car and I have to go get groceries. Even just 15-20 bucks fills up my tank pretty well so it's helped me a lot in situations like that or even buying medicine for my grandmother.

Our long-term goal is really just to be stable, safe, and comfortable where we're at. Yes, we're happy right now. Yes, we're a little comfortable, but we're not stable. This current job I have, it can be gone tomorrow. If our team gets infected with COVID or if I get infected as well, I'm gone. I want to be assured that I'm not going to lose what I have.

The thing that keeps me going is mainly just thinking about my mom and my grandmother. Without me, I don't think we would have what we have now. It'd be much more difficult on them. I also think back to what my boyfriend went through and what I've gone through, and wanting to change our situation. We just gotta think lighter about everything. That's what gets me, just knowing what we've been through and knowing what can happen.”

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