New Community Helps Young Woman from Homelessness to a Medical Career
Ilene Villanueva has always wanted to work in the medical field. She said even as a child, people would seek her out for help translating or other tasks when she would go to doctor appointments or the emergency room. Her hopes of becoming a doctor seemed out of reach when she became a mother at a young age and was unable to finish high school. She worked for a catering service and at a pharmacy in New York before moving to New Jersey. She found herself in a situation where her landlord only wanted rent payments in cash and he wouldn’t provide a lease. He changed the locks and she ended up homeless with her children. Villanueva then found Harmony