HomeStretch Volunteer a Domestic Abuse Survivor

These days Edie Davidson is a volunteer at HomeStretch in Roswell; but looking back, the domestic abuse survivor didn't know if she would make it this far, much less be able to help others coming out of similar situations.

There is a lot of laughter around the HomeStretch offices, where Davidson tries to give back by volunteering every week. HomeStretch is a non-profit organization that supplies temporary housing to homeless families.

Davidson can definitely relate.

“There were no support groups in those days [when I faced homelessness],” Davidson said. “It was always your fault. If a woman was homeless, it was her fault. If you were beat up, it was always your fault.”

Davidson, who has been with HomeStretch for three years, performs numerous jobs as a volunteer, but the one closest to her heart is acting as a mentor to some of the single mothers who live in HomeStretch housing.

“I was a mentor for one of the young ladies who graduated [from HomeStretch housing] in the spring. Of course I enjoy doing it because I have walked in their shoes. I know what it is like to feel despair. I know what it is like to feel you will never make it,” she said.

Davidson helps the women with their self-esteem. She also lends a sympathetic ear to the circumstances that left them with children and no home.

Rose Burton, executive director of HomeStretch, loves Davidson’s spirit.

“Edie gets it,” Burton said. “She’s a model of resilience and personal strength.”

Homestretch’s mission is unique among organization’s that help people resolve homelessness.

To be allowed to stay in one of HomeStretch’s 24 apartments, a single woman, a single man or a married couple must have a job, have minor children at home and must be drug and alcohol-free.

Families typically stay in HomeStretch apartments for two years. They graduate to a house or another home or apartment they can afford.

Davidson was attracted to HomeStretch when her family moved to Georgia in 2008 after she read about the local non-profit in a newspaper. Davidson, who figures she averages 15 hours of volunteering per week, also volunteers at Christ The King Lutheran Church in Norcross. She does secretarial work there on Wednesdays.

In all she does, Davidson is campaigning to raise awareness.

“We are trying to raise awareness of domestic violence,” Davidson said. “Because it is such a horrible, tragic thing.

There was a time in my life when "I wasn’t even sure if I was going to live to give back,” she recalls.

As a victim of domestic violence herself, Davidson, now 72, hurt physically and emotionally. After her husband, with whom she had three children, died in an automobile accident she got remarried during the late 1960s to a Marine, who became very controlling and violent.

She remembers plenty of painful days and nights when she would cry and think, “If someone would just give me a hug...”

“I remember one time we had gone to a party or a military function of some kind and I had this really pretty dress,” said Davidson. “I remember when we left the house he thought I looked really nice. At this party some other Marine said, 'Oh, Edie, you look really nice tonight.’ When we got home, [my husband] threw me down the stairs and tore that dress to shreds. And just beat the living hell out of me.”

Incidents like that and the physical abuse of her three young children, forced Davidson to leave their home in Virginia. When her husband went to Japan on assignment, she loaded the kids in her old, unreliable car and drove to Zion, Illinois, where Davidson and the children had previously lived.

Former neighbors in Zion let the three children sleep on their floor, but Davidson had to sleep in her car. That difficult arrangement continued for more than six months.

“I always believed in myself,” Davidson said.

Eventually, Davidson landed a secretarial job and was able to buy a house.

She reorganized her life.

Four decades later, Davidson is in a much happier place. She lives with her daughter, her daughter’s husband and her six-year-old granddaughter in Johns Creek.

Her now-adult children are well adjusted. The violent ex-husband died more than a decade ago.

“I made this promise to my higher power. I always said if I ever get out of this [homeless] situation, I would give back. It took a long time,” said Davidson.