Philly City Lawyer Draws on Difficult Childhood in Advising Homeless
A hardworking lawyer for the city of Philadelphia enjoys a comfortable middle-class existence, but it wasn’t always that way for her.
Nikki Johnson-Huston recalls her mother’s struggle with alcoholism and being homeless at the age of 9 after a move to San Diego, the Philadelphia News reports. “The family began living in hotels, on the streets, and then at a Salvation Army shelter,” the newspaper reports. “They ate meals at a rescue mission.”
The story has the details of Johnson-Huston’s early years and her struggle to succeed. Johnson-Huston got a break around the age of 10 when her mother sent her to live with her grandmother. Her brother went to foster care. Later he became addicted to drugs and infected with the HIV virus. He killed himself last year.
Johnson-Huston got a college scholarship, but she flunked out of school after a year of partying, the story says. She got a second chance after working as a live-in nanny, saving the money to return to school and bonding with the family. In a span of four years, she earned two law degrees and an MBA.
Now Johnson-Huston volunteers to help homeless people get the support and opportunities they need. “It makes me feel really good, like my life has come full circle,” she told the newspaper. “I had the dream of being a lawyer since I was a little girl, and it was a long and difficult process with failure along the way, but I got to live my dream.”
