When Dylan and Jessica learned they were going to have a baby, they were living in Texas, sheltering in a makeshift structure on the edge of the woods. They built it out of loose plywood and scrap from a McDonald’s billboard. They had been without stable housing for some time, with only each other for support.

Without permanent shelter or transportation, they washed up with water they bought at a nearby gas station, then walked three miles to work and three miles back to their shelter every day. It was winter, with temperatures dropping to negative twelve degrees—cold enough for icicles to form along their shelter while they slept. Even with both of them working full-time jobs, they hadn’t been able to keep up with their rent.

“We were starving,” Dylan said. “Having to light our campfire with flint and steel. And because it’s all wet, you can’t light a fire. So we were just starving all night, listening to each other’s stomachs growl. That was scary. Like, ‘Are we going to be able to light a fire and feed ourselves in the next twenty-four hours?’”

Then they learned Jessica was pregnant. In nine months they would have a baby to care for, and they couldn’t do it in these conditions. They needed a way out. 

They had family in North Carolina, so they decided to head there for support. During their last weeks in Texas, Dylan wrote the words Asheville Bound on a piece of plywood above their heads. The words hung above them as they huddled together and waited for the day they could leave.

On their final night in Texas, a tornado ripped past their shelter, forcing them to flee. They hopped on a bus the next day.

They arrived in downtown Asheville in the middle of the night. Jessica had never left Texas before, and neither of them had ever been in the mountains. They spent their first night sleeping in a bush outside an office supplies store.

The next morning, they tried to get breakfast and found they didn’t have enough money to buy even the cheapest item on the menu. 

“I was bawling my eyes out,” Dylan said, “because I was like, ‘What type of guy am I?’ I can’t even pay for my woman … Yeah, it hurt.”

A stranger overheard them. She approached the couple and offered to pay for their meals. She didn’t know the first thing about them. She simply knew they needed help. Then she offered them a place to sleep on her pull-out couch. 

They gratefully accepted, but it wasn’t a permanent solution. They soon discovered that their family members in the area were in no position to help them. They were either homeless themselves or on the verge of homelessness. With a child on the way, Dylan and Jessica still urgently needed a path to stable housing.

“When we researched it, it said that Homeward Bound helped the most with people who are homeless, and they get them housed,” Jessica said. “We started there.”

That meant a long hike across town through unfamiliar terrain. Along the way, rain and sleet began to fall.

They were soaking and exhausted when a man on the street offered them bus tickets to complete their journey to AHOPE, Homeward Bound’s day center.

“The volunteers at AHOPE,” Jessica said, “they heard our story and with an open heart listened, and gave us all the help and resources we needed.”

They submitted their application for housing. They found temporary shelter at Western Carolina Rescue Ministries while they waited for news, and both of them found jobs in town. A few months later, their case manager reached out with good news: they had been approved for housing, and a place was available. 

For Jessica, it was a relief to finally be settled in a permanent home. For Dylan, the new home represented something they had rarely experienced: a place where they could begin to imagine a future. A place where they could raise their family, get a dog, connect with their neighbors, and build a stable life together.

“This is about the only time we’ve actually felt at home,” Jessica said.

That feeling extended beyond their home to Asheville itself. Dylan said he felt welcomed by the community in a way he never had in Texas. It was a comfort to be around people who looked out for one another—including perfect strangers who were willing to offer a helping hand when the couple needed it most.

Jessica gave birth the week after they moved in. Today, they have been in their new home for five weeks with their newborn daughter, Xena, named after the television series Dylan loved as a child. For her middle name, they chose Esme. Together, the names take on a new meaning: Beloved stranger.