After medical setbacks, a family works to escape homelessness

Johnika Jamison, 38, packing and helping her daughter Eastin, 9, get ready for school, center, as she holds her sister Everly, 1, in the hotel room her family calls home at the moment on Dec. 12, 2025. Jamison and her family have been homeless for more than a year after she and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. Jamison is struggling to lead her family out of homelessness while tending to their everyday care and needs. The hotel has a laundry room, Jamison says, but it’s $5 per load. She doesn’t use it much.

Johnika Jamison, 38, left, with her daughters Eden Jamison, 15, right, holding her sister Everly, 1, and Eastin Jamison, 9, as they wake and prepare for school in their hotel room. “We’re running behind, as usual,” Jamison says. It’s Friday, and Eden needs to be at her bus stop by 6:30 a.m. Eastin's bus driver starts the route outside of their hotel each morning, idling for about 15 minutes. Eastin likes getting there early to read from the empty bus, basking in a kind of quiet that doesn't exist in the hotel room.

Johnika Jamison, 38, and her family have been homeless for more than a year after she and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. “I care for everybody else. I’m the one who manages all the medical appointments and the symptoms on the daily, and doing the research and advocating for each of my family members to their doctors," Jamison says. "And making sure that everybody takes their medicine on the daily.”

Johnika Jamison, 38, and her husband Tristian Harris, 25, right, and their family have been homeless for more than a year after they both experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. Jamison is struggling to lead her family out of homelessness while tending to their everyday care and needs. “It’s not that easy to get back on your feet when you’re literally trying to survive," Jamison says.

Johnika Jamison, left, and her family have been homeless for more than a year after she and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. Every day, Jamison and Harris have to come up with $100 to stay in the hotel. She has paid for it in the past by returning items she’s bought for her family, like Everly’s high chair and toys. 

Johnika Jamison, 38, and her husband Tristian Harris, 25, getting a start to the day preparing the kids for school on Dec. 12, 2025. Jamison and her family were locked out of their apartment on Sept. 19, 2024. Jamison was seven months pregnant. After they were evicted, Jamison and her daughters went to Jamison’s parents’ house in Gaffney, South Carolina. But after she had Everly in October, Jamison, Harris and the baby stayed with Harris’s dad while Eden and Eastin stayed with Jamison’s parents. “It was a lot of hotel hopping and moving back and forth, and we weren’t all together,” Jamison says.

Eastin Jamison, 9, falls asleep in the evening in the family’s hotel room. Johnika Jamison, 38, and her family have been homeless for more than a year after she and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. Jamison is struggling to lead her family out of homelessness while tending to their everyday care and needs.

Johnika Jamison, 38, in the hotel room the family calls home while watching her daughter Everly, 1, sleep during the day while her other children are at school and her husband is at work. Jamison and her family stayed in an Airbnb in Charlotte in September and October 2025, when she was hired at a charter school in Charlotte. “For the first time in a year, all five of us were together,” Jamison says. But she was let go three weeks into the job, and soon they couldn’t afford the Airbnb anymore. They've been in the hotel room since Nov. 8.

Eden Jamison, 15, helps care and feed her sister, Everly, 1, in the hotel room where the family resides. “We don’t like to put her on the floors,” their mom, Johnika Jamison, says of the baby. Everly wants to start walking, but they keep her on the beds or in her playpen. “We don’t trust ‘em,” Everly's dad Tristian Harris says. 

Johnika Jamison, left, with her three daughters Eden, 15 Eastin , 9 and Everly, 1, and her husband Tristian Harris, back right, in the small hotel room they call home. Jamison married Harris, Everly's father, in December 2024. The family has been homeless for more than a year after Jamison and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. “I don’t have time to be under the weather,” Jamison says. “I’ve got to take care of everybody else and every thing.” She gets meals from food pantries sometimes, but they often provide unusable items. One time Jamison was gifted a box of dry pasta and a jar of sauce. But her family lives in a hotel room. “How the heck am I supposed to cook that?”

Johnika Jamison, left, with her three daughters Eden, 15 Eastin, 9 and Everly, 1, and her husband Tristian Harris, back right, in the small hotel room they call home. Jamison was a school guidance counselor for a decade before her family’s medical needs and her high-risk pregnancy took her out of the workforce. “I get so much happiness from helping kids and their families,” she says. As a school counselor, Jamison worked with students experiencing homelessness before she was homeless. “You don’t understand until you’re in it yourself,” she says.

Eden Jamison, 15, arrives back from school to the hotel room the family calls home on Dec. 12, 2025. Johnika Jamison, 38, and her family have been homeless for more than a year after she and her husband experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. Eden tries to help out around the house and acts like "a little adult” sometimes. “But she can’t,” Johnika Jamison says. “She’s 15.” 

Tristian Harris, 25, after being sent home following a shortened work day and trouble with a paycheck on Dec. 12, 2025. He and his wife Johnika Jamison, 38, are currently living in a small hotel room. They have been homeless for more than a year after Jamison and Harris experienced medical troubles that put them out of work. The car Jamison and Harris share, a 2005 Nissan Ultima, has over 200,000 miles on it and needs an oil change, Jamison says. 

Johnika Jamison, 38, and her family have been living in a small hotel room since Nov. 8, 2025. It costs $100 per night. "Some days it takes all your attention and energy just to find the money for the next night," Jamison says. Luckily, the hotel manager has been kind to them and doesn't demand the $100 by noon. "I think she's just a really good person."