How one Mercy Care case manager brought her client stability, trust and eventually, a home.
When Sonja Kilgore first walked through Mercy Care’s doors in late 2023, she was recovering from a devastating house fire, a long hospitalization, and years of untreated behavioral health challenges. With nowhere safe to go and no connection to medical or behavioral health services, Sonja had entered homelessness — and the uncertainty that comes with it.
Over the next year, Sonja’s path was anything but easy. Living with schizophrenia and with no family or structured support system in place, she often disappeared for months at a time. She would stop taking her meds, miss her appointments and fall out of care. It became a cycle — mental health instability, disappearing for weeks at a time, unsafe sleeping, and short shelter stays.
But each time she returned, she came back to the same place — and the same person — who never gave up on her: Beverly, her Mercy Care case manager.
Whenever they reunited, they would work through hurdles together. Sonja cycled through shelters, waited for housing openings, and struggled to stay connected without a reliable phone. But Beverly was always there — with check-ins, encouragement, and hope. So that was the one place – one person – to whom Sonja knew she could go.
Patience, understanding and a willingness to start the journey over again
During that transitional time together, there was one setback in particular that frustrated Beverly: she had worked for almost a year to obtain a Georgia Housing Voucher for Sonja, and Sonja disappeared right around the time she was approved. While she waited, Beverly talked with the Georgia agency and they agreed to hold Sonja’s voucher for 90 days. When Sonja finally returned after 120 days, the voucher was gone. Beverly was heartbroken that all that hard work had been for nothing; Sonja would have to re-join the queue and wait all over again. As a seasoned case manager, Beverly understands that the journey towards health and stability is rarely linear. So she took a breath and was ready to start the process all over when Sonja walked back through the door.
Finally, another unit becomes available.
Beverly knew that Sonja had a lot of trauma centered around housing and explained that many of her clients experiencing homelessness have been told “no” so often, they have a hard time trusting when they hear another answer.
“When I told her the Winnwood unit was coming, I physically showed her on the computer that she had been selected,” Beverly said. “I think seeing it helped her believe it. So, I began scheduling weekly or biweekly check-ins so she wouldn’t drift away again. I think she stayed engaged because she finally believed something real was going to happen.”
Finally after many more months, their collective perseverance paid off.
In early February 2026, Sonja moved into her new apartment at Winnwood Apartments, a permanent supportive housing community on Peachtree Street. After years of instability, she had a safe place to sleep — her own bed, her own key, her own home.
“She looked at me and said, ‘You don’t know how good it feels to sleep in my own bed after all these years,” Beverly shared.
More than just an apartment
Now, with stable housing and a supportive team around her, Sonja is thinking about her future. She loves her apartment where her son can come by to visit and check up on her. She says that she is planning to transition her behavioral health, medical and peer support services back to Mercy Care from another facility and still dreams of attending cosmetology school.
For Sonja, this apartment is more than housing — it’s a foundation for healing, dignity, and possibility. Now that she no longer has to think about finding a safe place to sleep and where to find food, she can focus on her health and her future. And Beverly is slowly teaching her to trust again. It’s a journey that they’ll continue to walk together.
For Mercy Care and their teams, her story is one of many powerful reminders of what compassionate, whole-person healthcare makes possible: a chance to begin again.
