For mother and daughter Shervon and Jayla Hogsett, Christmas will be just “another day” this year — another day where they fight to stay warm on Fayetteville’s streets, hope local organizations will hand out meals and worry where they’ll wash themselves and store their belongings.
Shervon Hogsett, 56, a former real estate agent and paralegal, and her daughter, 24-year-old Jayla, came to Fayetteville from the Atlanta area about a year ago when a cousin offered them a place to stay for a “fresh start,” they said. That fresh start didn’t last long, according to the Hogsetts, who said they were kicked out just a few weeks later.
Now, they’ll have been homeless for a year on Jan. 2.
“There’s nowhere for us to go, because we don’t have any family here,” Shervon Hogsett told CityView.
And while most in Cumberland County will be celebrating Christmas with loved ones or taking a day off to rest, the Hogsetts won’t be partaking.
“There’s nothing human about the way we live,” Shervon Hogsett said.
Members of the homeless community are often forgotten around the holiday season, the Hogsetts said, noting that the Christmas spirit seems to be a luxury they aren’t afforded. At the Day Resource Center on King Street, for example, it’s difficult to find a trace of holiday joy, Jayla Hogsett said.
“It’s the holiday season,” she said. “There are no decorations. There is no music in that place.”
“And did they ask the homeless to help put up the (Christmas) tree?” her mother interjected.
She shook her head.
“People lose touch with their humanity,” Shervon Hogsett said. “The job of being homeless takes your whole time. Where am I gonna be? Where am I gonna eat? When am I gonna eat again? Where am I gonna put my stuff when it’s time to lay down?”
A count on Feb. 3 found a total of 474 homeless people in Cumberland County, according to Fayetteville-Cumberland County Continuum of Care (FAYCCCoC), a nonprofit that offers services and resources for the local homeless population. At the state level, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that on any given night, 9,268 people are homeless in North Carolina, a number that has risen in recent years, mirroring national trends. The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development reported that about 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness on one night in 2023 — its highest number since the department began such counts in 2007.
The Hogsetts said that some local organizations in Cumberland County have treated them with respect and humanity, such as Operation Inasmuch, Harvest Ministries and True Vine Ministries.
“There are a few places where we feel like we get some dignity,” Shervon Hogsett said.
When contacted by CityView, workers at Operation Inasmuch, Second Harvest Food Bank and First Baptist Church each said they would not be open or handing out meals on Christmas this year. An employee at the Day Resource Center told CityView that the center will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, but a local nonprofit will be handing out meals in the center’s parking lot from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Christmas.
‘We have found comfort in each other’
KyShayla McLean, 26, told CityView that she’ll be spending Christmas with her three children at the Salvation Army’s shelter, where they’ve lived since Dec. 1.
“Whether we have to celebrate in the shelter or wherever, I’ll just make sure that they get to enjoy,” she said. “I call the shelter a hotel for them. My little ones, they think it’s a hotel.”
She hopes to do arts and crafts with her children, who are 8, 4 and 2, and perhaps buy some cookies or other treats for them. McLean said Salvation Army staff have promised a Christmas dinner and a shoe giveaway on Christmas Eve.
“They’re trying,” she said.
McLean said she became homeless on Sept. 30 after struggling to manage her money while working from home and studying business administration at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
“Being a single mom of three kids, I only get like $250 in child support,” she said. “I wasn’t able to manage bills, plus a $580-some car payment and sustaining three kids. So it came at the cost of my car getting [repossessed] and losing my home. I’m just starting over.”
Before coming to the Salvation Army, McLean said she paid for hotels while working at a Speedway in Dunn, where her boss would watch the children for her.
“Fayetteville’s a big place, but there’s not a lot of help,” she said. “The people at the shelter, we have found comfort in each other. We don’t even have to know everybody’s struggle.”
Growing up in foster care with an abusive mother, McLean said, she was never taught how to manage her finances or to prepare for the day where she’d have to care for her own children. Now, she’s learning those lessons day by day while trying to do her best for her family.
“I’m very hard on myself,” she said. “I spent money on cars, shoes — things I shouldn’t have, [I’d be] thinking in the moment, and then stuff like this happens. But I always remind them that we’re home. Home is where we are. Home is together.”
Help from the people around her has been crucial, McLean said. Fellow shelter residents will remind her children to put their hat on before going outside and offer to walk with McLean so she doesn’t feel unsafe, she said.
Her caseworker at the Cumberland County Dept. of Social Services has been a particular blessing, she said.
“DSS, they got good and bad, but I have a phenomenal worker,” she said. “She’s dropping off Christmas gifts for my kids this afternoon.”
And this Christmas, McLean said, she’ll continue to remind her children and herself to be grateful for what they do have.
“Had I not gone through this, I would’ve never understood what homeless people have to go through,” she said. “I’m a firm believer that it takes a village. And my kids have a village.”
Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
