Chapter One: Marilyn’s Story

By Jessica Kenley

“We’ve sold everything we can.”

Marilyn’s voice is steady as she surveys what remains inside the modest home where she and her husband have spent the last five years building a life together during a Facetime interview with Monarch Media.

The television is gone. The Xbox has been sold. The laptop computer disappeared weeks ago. Soon, the family pets will leave for new homes because there is no longer enough money to care for them. Within days, the last of their belongings will be loaded into their car—the same vehicle that will become their home while they search for a new beginning hundreds of miles away.

For Marilyn, whose name has been changed at her request to protect her family’s privacy, leaving Potter County is not an adventure.

It is surrender.

At 31 years old, she has spent nearly two decades calling Potter County home. She earned her GED in Coudersport, found her first apartment, held jobs in the area, married, and raised two children. She expected to build a future here.

Instead, she says she has reached the point where staying is no longer possible.

“We’re going to be starting our new life out living in our car,” Marilyn said. “We’re going to have to be in this area for a little while because my husband isn’t just going to up and leave the employment he’s had for two years.”

Her husband, Lakota, works full-time as an assistant manager. Even with steady employment, however, the couple says they cannot earn enough to remain housed. Once he gives notice, they plan to head north to New York, where Marilyn was born, hoping that more employment opportunities and access to medical care will give them a chance to rebuild.

Their journey will begin with whatever fits inside their vehicle.

A Medical Mystery

For more than a year, Marilyn says she has struggled with debilitating health problems that have made regular employment nearly impossible.

She describes daily nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, painful mouth ulcers, rashes, exhaustion, and joint and muscle pain. Despite repeated medical visits, she says she still has no definitive diagnosis.

“So for right now, for me, it’s a struggle because medically I can’t do a lot,” she said. “There’s nothing in this area to help with that unless you have a diagnosis.”

Without one, she says many forms of assistance remain out of reach.

Marilyn says she applied for housing assistance but was told she would remain on a waiting list because she did not qualify for any medical priority. She contacted county human service agencies seeking help but says the recommendations were limited to contacting local churches for financial assistance or accepting a short stay at an emergency shelter in Ulysses. 

For three days.

“I have contacted Human Resources. I had contacted the Potter County Assistance Program,” she said. “The only suggestion that they had was to talk to one of the bigger churches to see if they could pull together some money to help.”

For families already facing financial hardship, she says those options do little to solve a long-term housing crisis.

Searching for Work

Marilyn says she has continued looking for employment despite her health challenges.

She recently applied for a position at Sheetz in Coudersport but was told she did not meet the company’s “criteria.” She says she asked for feedback to improve future interviews but never received a response.

“I literally emailed and asked if there was something I could improve on,” she said. “They didn’t even take the time to respond.”

She also describes previous employment experiences that she believes contributed to her financial decline, leaving her with few options in a region where available jobs are already limited.

“The job market here is so limited,” she said. “For somebody who has a health condition, there aren’t many alternative options.”

Leaving Behind What Matters Most

The hardest part of leaving, Marilyn says, is not the house.

It is her children.

For 11 years, she says she worked through the court system to rebuild consistent visitation with her son and daughter after difficult family circumstances. She says she has remained free of criminal charges and drug-related offenses during that time while working to demonstrate stability.

Now, financial necessity is forcing her to move away.

“My children have been used to coming here,” she said. “They’ve been used to seeing us here. We have animals here that we now have to rehome, and it’s been hard on the kids.”

She pauses before continuing.

“I worked very, very hard to get to where I could see my kids on a regular basis. Eleven years of working through the system.”

The move, she fears, could make maintaining that relationship even more difficult.

Her husband is also leaving behind generations of family members who have long called Potter County home, including his parents, grandfather, siblings, nieces, and nephews.

More Than One Family’s Story

Marilyn’s experience illustrates a reality that many rural communities across America continue to confront: poverty is rarely the result of a single event.

More often, it develops through a series of setbacks.

An unresolved illness can limit someone’s ability to work. Reduced income creates financial instability. Financial strain threatens housing. Once housing becomes uncertain, every decision becomes more difficult. By the time a family reaches crisis, the available resources may be limited, waiting lists may be long, and options may have narrowed to impossible choices.

Every family’s circumstances are different, and Marilyn’s story represents only one experience. Yet her account raises broader questions about the challenges facing some rural residents who struggle to access specialized medical care, stable employment, affordable housing, and long-term support before reaching a breaking point.

For Marilyn, those questions have become intensely personal.

As she and Lakota prepare to load the last of their possessions into their car, there is little left to sell and even less certainty about what comes next.

“We’ve sold everything we can,” she said.

In those six words is the story of one family forced to leave a community they never wanted to abandon.

Whether it is also the story of others quietly reaching the same crossroads is a question worth asking.

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in an ongoing series examining the challenges and resilience of people living in Potter County. Each story reflects the experiences of the individual interviewed. Their accounts have been reported and attributed to them, with identifying information withheld when requested.