DANVERS, Mass. — Kelly Alvarez spent 20 months living in a hotel, but a situation she recalls as “embarrassing” coincided with her work toward a significant accomplishment she will celebrate this week.

Today, the single mom and her kids, ages 3 and 7, live in an apartment in Salem, Massachusetts. She’s made dean’s list for three semesters at nearby North Shore Community College with a 3.51 grade point average. On Thursday, the criminal justice major will not only earn her associate’s degree — which she did in two years — she will be the college’s student speaker during commencement.

That’s when, for the first time, Alvarez will share her story of being homeless. Only a few of her friends and colleagues know about her former plight, which includes a tough upbringing in Texas, and, after moving to Massachusetts, getting evicted then laid off in quick succession.

“It was embarrassing to me, honestly,” Alvarez told the Salem, Massachusetts News. “I didn’t want to tell anybody I lived there.”

The 27-year-old and her kids stayed in the motel from August 2014 until April 2016, when she moved into a two-bedroom apartment owned by the Salem Housing Authority.

While in the motel, she decided to go to back to school, first online in the spring of 2015, then as a full-time student starting that fall.

Disappointed in herself, Alvarez kept her living situation a secret on campus.

“I didn’t want people to think any less of me, and then also, personally, in myself, I was more like ashamed that I was in that situation, because it’s not a situation that you would ever think you would find yourself in,” she said.

Background

Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, Alvarez ended up in the foster care system at age 13.

“It was rough,” she said. “It’s not an ideal type of living situation I would wish on anybody.” Her estranged father died about a year after she moved to Massachusetts. Her estranged mother was addicted to heroin. The two reconnected after Alvarez left the foster care system when she was almost 18, but things did not work out.

Alvarez moved in with an aunt, who had good intentions, but things did not work out there, either. She ended up moving out and getting her own place.

“From then on I worked,” she said. “When I lived with my aunt and my uncle, I worked.”

First, she sold phone accessories at the mall. Eventually, she landed a job as a telecommunications worker in a hospital, taking security phone calls. When she was laid off, she got a job at another hospital, where she worked for a year before coming to Massachusetts.

“I mostly came here for better opportunities, a change as well,” Alvarez said.

She found a temporary job in Newton, doing data entry for a company that provides retirement and college savings plans. The three-month stint stretched into a 13-month job before she was laid off again. She had two children at the time.

A month before she was laid off, her family became homeless. She had been renting a room in an apartment, but the woman she was subletting the room from was evicted. That’s when she ended up in Danvers.

Life in the motel with other homeless families had its challenges, due to both the circumstances and the tight restrictions. She and her kids lived in a small studio with a kitchenette. She was lucky that she had a vehicle so she could go food shopping and get around.

“There’s a lot of stories for that place,” Alvarez said.

Life on campus

It was a friend at the motel who suggested that Alvarez go back to school. She went to an orientation at North Shore and signed up for online courses.

“Online was not for me,” Alvarez said. “I’m not going to lie, because it was very hard. It was hard to be in one room with two kids. My daughter was in preschool but she was only there for a couple of hours.” Her son was too young to be in a program at that time.

She passed all her online classes except one.

“It was very difficult,” she said.

She decided to go to school on campus. First, she had to apply to the state for child care. Her case worker also required she actively look for work and for housing while attending school full-time.

So, Alvarez turned to the work study program at the community college and continued to apply for housing.

“I found it was a huge thing for me. I met a lot of people,” she said of work study. “I started to feel more welcomed.”

Still, Alvarez chose to keep the details of her life circumstances to herself. Even Donna Szekely, her academic counselor, didn’t know Alvarez’s situation.

“Donna absolutely loves Kelly,” said Diane Dickerson, who directs a program at the college, TRIO/Student Support Services, which offers support for low-income and disabled students. “She not only loves her, she admires her. For the counselor to admire the student says something about Kelly.”

Dickerson and Szekely had no idea that Alvarez was homeless, and Alvarez never used her living situation as an excuse.

“She just persevered and worked very hard,” Dickerson said.

While Alvarez was hesitant at first to share her story, Dickerson said she decided to tell it so students could see they could do the same. Doing so also provided her with a chance to become a student speaker at the college’s commencement ceremony this week. She wrote a speech, which was reviewed by a cross-campus selection committee, according to Linda Brantley, executive director of external and public relations for the college. She then had to recite it to the selection committee, which made a recommendation to the college’s president.

Alvarez is not done with college just yet. In the fall, she plans to study criminal justice at Salem State University, while also looking into sociology and social work. She wants to work with juvenile delinquents in the community.

“Kids at that age are very vulnerable, and without any guidance,” she said. “Part of the reason that they turn to be delinquent is they fall in with the wrong crowd because of no guidance or they have no guidance at home, and they just do whatever.”

It’s the kind of guidance Alvarez wished she had growing up.

Now, Alvarez sees her story as a source of inspiration.

“People are in different situations,” she said, “and no matter your situation, there’s a way to get out of it, as long as you are willing and able to get up, and push yourself, and work hard, and really, really find it deep within yourself to get up and help yourself.”

Forman writes for the Salem, Massachusetts News.