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Photography - Stories: Nowhere To Go

The Alviso family faces an uncertain future. After living quietly in a South Austin, Texas trailer park for several years, Ismael, Maria and their three daughters, Mary, 15, Carmine, nine, and Anna, eight, are being evicted from their home. Unfortunalely for the Alvisos and the other residents, Wal-Mart has plans to build a new Super Center on the site. With Ismael out of work

and only weeks left to vacate the property,

the family is faced with nowhere to go.

The uncertainty of their situation forced Ismael and Maria to send their three daughters to live with family in Kansas until they can find a new home and steady work. The family was homeless two years before and the difficulties of that period led the couple to this decision despite not knowing how long they would be seperated.
  
"It's hard. I miss them very much," Maria said about being apart from her daughters as she packed the family's belongings.
  
Maria and Ismael survey their belongings outside of their motorhome. With very little money and no leads on a new place to live they are unsure where they will move to or how they can afford to pay for it.
     
  
Ismael and his neighbors, Doug Wilson, left, and Terrell Ash, discuss a rumor that Wal-Mart plans to provide relocation money to the residents. The rumor gives Maria and Ismael hope as the deadline nears for them to vacate the property.
   
When the relocation money does not materialize they take to scavenging copper wire and aluminum from abandoned buildings to recycle and raise some much needed money.
   
Ismael must burn the wire they have salvaged to melt away the plastic shielding. In order to get the fire going he burns some of their furniture as kindling.
     
  
Just before the eviction deadline Ismael gets a job offer in Dallas working construction. In desperate need of money, they quickly finish breaking down their home and prepare to move on.
   
Employed but homeless, Ismael and Maria spend a week sleeping in the unfinished apartments of the complex in Dallas where he is working. On the phone Maria tells her girls that they hope to find an apartment soon so that they can bring them back from Kansas.
   
After finding an apartment in Irving, a suburb of Dallas, Ismael and Maria make an overnight journey to pick up the girls from Maria's sister's in Garden City, Kansas.
     
  
After being apart for more than a month, Anna, Mary and Carmen, left to right, wake up to find their parents resting after arriving in Garden City in the early morning. With a steady income and a new place to live they are ready to be a family once again.