A mom with four kids stumbles into homelessness. Here's how she found a way out

Ever noticed a Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth truck going down the road? They usually bear a huge image of a smiling woman.

Maybe you dismiss it as a marketing scheme, but you donate to Goodwill anyway, hoping to do something good for someone else.

And you will: According to Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth officials, 93 cents of every dollar spent at a Goodwill store or on its website goes back into programs and services to help the homeless, veterans, disabled and at-risk youth.

But what about that image? Maybe you’ll see that truck and say to yourself, "It’s just another paid actor, smiling, portraying a mythological person the Goodwill has helped."

Well, actually you're looking at 39-year-old Gina Casteal, of Fort Worth, who drives one of those trucks around the western half of Dallas-Fort Worth for Goodwill five days a week. She is far from a paid actor.

“It’s pretty cool,” said Casteal. “Nobody ever really notices it. Everybody in Texas is real busy and they drive fast. But I’m a humble person so it’s OK.”

Humility doesn't always come naturally. Sometimes, life can lead you to it.

When life turns upside down

Casteal, is bi-racial, African-American and white, and originally from Topeka, Kansas.

She had been making a decent life for herself in Topeka up until 2008, working as a nurse’s aide caring for elderly people suffering from dementia. She had just given birth to her fourth child. She had recently bought a home with the father of her children and they worked at the same hospital. She said her life seemed to be fine.

Until her world was changed by his infidelity on the job.

“I wasn’t prepared to handle something like that. My whole life was turned upside-down,” Casteal said. “I thought we were happy.”

She eventually lost her job and her home soon followed, once the bank foreclosed. “That’s how I took care of my family, on 8 or 9 dollars an hour. I tried to hang on. I would pay my light bill one month, then next month pay my mortgage but then next month your car breaks down,” said Casteal. “I had new babies and I begged them not to turn our electricity off. It started to hit me and I couldn’t really juggle it all on my own.”

She tried to repair her relationship with her children’s father for a year or two, but it didn’t work out.

By then, she was so far behind on her mortgage she ran out of options in Topeka.

“I had to concede, I had to admit failure and that was hard to do,” said Casteal. “I didn’t want the sheriff to put us out so I decided to go before that happened. I packed up their baby pictures and sentimental things.”

She moved around in Kansas with family and friends for the next two years, but struggled to find stability. Part of what made it harder for her to get work was a felony drug conviction she had from 2005.

“The system is pretty much set up if you have a criminal record to fail,” said Casteal. “There’s no opportunities out here where they are just waiting to hire a felon that wants to do right for their family.”

Bouncing around In 2012, she reached out to relatives in Montgomery, Alabama, hoping she could go there and restart her life.

“Pretty much you find out not a whole lot of people are there for you that you think would be,” said Casteal. “So, it was kind of scary for me to leave not knowing what to do.”

She did get some help from distant relatives and packed up her family and headed to Montgomery. She found a little bit of luck and landed a part-time job cleaning hotel rooms. But the job wasn’t enough to help her branch out on her own.

“For me and four kids to move into someone else’s home and try to pay our way and do our part,” said Casteal. “I could feel they wanted to kick me and my kids out. I wasn’t able to get a full-time job. I was picking pecans and selling them on the side when I wasn’t at the hotel.”

After about 10 months, she reconnected with a childhood friend on Facebook who suggested she move to Houston, Texas.

“I moved there where she was at. I got a part-time job at a corner store and we split the bills,” said Casteal. “But then she decided to move back to Kansas.”

At that point, she ended up homeless with her children.

“I was just trying not to get my kids taken away,” said Casteal. “We were sleeping in my car. I hid it at the time. My kids weren’t allowed to go to school and talk about it. There’s just a shame factor that goes along with it.”

Getting a helping hand

She came to the doors of the Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth in July 2013 with her children, ages 14, 11, 6 and 5 at the time.

Feeling defeated by life, she met, Tim Overstreet, a Goodwill employee, when she walked through the door. He had been a homeless veteran when he came to the Goodwill in 2010, and understood her struggles.

“He changed my life. He does a lot of work helping homeless people find jobs,” said Casteal. “I didn’t really believe in myself at the time but he really pushed me and told me that I could do it. He said, ‘Everything is going to be OK.' ”

Casteal also met Kristin Bostick, director of educational programs at Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth, when she arrived. Bostick was in a different role at the time, but is very familiar with Casteal's story.

“Gina is just one of those great and wonderful people,” said Bostick. “Getting through this depends on a person’s fortitude and willingness and she is a great example of that.”

When Casteal arrived, she was put into the Goodwill’s system as a open placement client through their job resource center. Then she was assessed on her education level and whether she was work-ready.

Casteal said when she got to Fort Worth she noticed all the trucks in the area. “I was looking online and CDL truck driving just kept popping up. I’m like, ‘Gosh there’s like posters on the lamp posts for truck driving,' ” said Casteal. “But then I’m thinking to myself, ‘Maybe I can’t do it because I have a felony,’ I’m thinking nothing good happens to people with a felony.”

The cost of the Commercial Driver’s License truck driving program totaled $3,750 for a 200-hour program that would take seven weeks to complete. Casteal, homeless at the time, couldn’t afford it.

But Shay Johnson, vice-president of community engagement for Goodwill, said all was not lost.

Bostick, along with other members of Goodwill, helped Casteal apply for a scholarship at North Texas Institute for Career Development.

The fully accredited career college, through the Texas Workforce Commission of Career Schools & Colleges, is owned and operated by Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth.

The scholarship came from the Moncrief Ryan Goodwill of Fort Worth Board of Directors Scholarship Fund. It takes 65 donors, whose items would generate about $58 apiece, to fund the cost of Casteal’s tuition.

“We review all applications and make the determination [whether]this person has no source of income, which was Gina’s case,” said Johnson.

They decided to give her a 100 percent scholarship.

From then on, it was up to Casteal to make the most of the opportunity. Getting through the 200 hours of coursework proved to be a bit of a challenge for her, initially.

“I have sort of a learning disability. So when I was reading the CDL booklet from the Texas Department of Transportation all that information was really hard for me to absorb,” she said. She said she leaned on her children, most notably her eldest son, Romane Mays, who was 14 at the time.

She would make a set of flashcards, writing the answers on one side with the questions on the opposite side, and when her kids got home from school they would quiz her.

“If I got it right, we all cheered,” said Casteal. “If I didn’t, we would put it to the side and just keep going over it and over it.”

She successfully completed the coursework within the allotted 7-week period. But there were a few more hurdles: The TxDOT CDL exam and the fact that she would need a tractor-trailer to take the road portion of the exam.

Goodwill loaned her a tractor-trailer.

“One of our instructors goes with them in one of our tractor-trailers that they’ve been training on,” said Johnson.

Redemption

For Casteal this was it -- the quality of life for her family depended on her passing the exam. It was her game-winning drive in the final moments of the Super Bowl, a buzzer-beating shot in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, a make-or-break moment.

“This was something that not only could help me and my kids get an apartment but maybe we could even buy a home. We might be able to get a better car. This could really change everything,” said Casteal. “This is what I worked so hard for.”

Not only did Casteal ace the CDL exam, but she was hired as a truck driver by Goodwill immediately afterwards, Johnson said.

“We focus on helping everyone get a job afterwards but she needed a job quickly. which is why they went the Goodwill route,” said Johnson. “Because we need drivers. Everyone needs drivers. It’s a hard job and most people either stay with it or they don’t.”

Now, not only does Casteal drive a truck for Goodwill with a larger-than-life-sized picture of her on the trailer, but she’s also considered Goodwill's top driver.

Her son, Romane, has received a full scholarship in business to Texas Christian University and is headed into his sophomore year. She also has recently been approved for a home through the Habitat For Humanity, that is being built right now.

“I was close to giving up and I’m so appreciative of them (Goodwill) because they kept pushing me. My instructors never gave up on me,” said Casteal.

So items donated on a whim or as a honest, goodhearted gesture create financial resources that go back into programs just like the one that helped turn Casteal’s life around -- and might have also altered her children’s futures.

“Just think about it, how Goodwill touched my life and now it’s touching my kids' life,” said Casteal. “With Romane going to college, that’s going to change our family forever. He’s on the track to be something great. I’ve instilled in him to get married and never turn your back on your kids.”

How to make a donation or get help from Goodwill Industries of Fort Worth

For donation, homeless services or youth program information call: 817-332-7866

For their job resource center email: jrc@goodwillfw.org

Veteran services: 817-332-7866 ext. 2071

Quick facts about Goodwill

• Goodwill Fort Worth operates 22 regular thrift stores, the GW Boutique in Keller, the Campus Outlet store, ShopGoodwill.com, and Fort Worth e-books on Amazon.
  
  
• When you shop or donate to Goodwill Fort Worth 93 cents of every dollar goes back into mission services.
  
  
• Almost all Goodwill Fort Worth employees earn a minimum starting salary of at least $7.25 an hour with most earning $9.25 per hour or more. That averages higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
  
  
• With a $40 million operation and almost 900 employees, Goodwill Fort Worth regularly serves more than 4,800 job seekers each year.
  
  
• In 2016, 113 North Texas Institute for Career Development graduates in professional truck driver and forklift training were employed at a rate of 76.67 percent.

This story was originally published December 28, 2017 at 1:25 PM with the headline "A mom with four kids stumbles into homelessness. Here's how she found a way out."