The day before Ashley Baker turned 16 years old, she moved into a Dallas motel with her mom. They were newly homeless.
Sandy, Ashley's mother, then 44, had just left a troubled marriage, scraped together what money she could and left home with Ashley.
For the next two and a half years, they were homeless. They recounted the challenges they faced during a recent StoryCorps interview in Dallas.
"One of the first places that we lived was [an] InTown Suites Hotel," said Sandy, now 54. "And there was nothing sweet about it. It was crazy bad."