At 18, Linda decided she'd had enough of living in a group home, so she left. "I thought I was ready to be on my own. I wasn't." She had nowhere to go, and became homeless. She became involved with a man who was separated from his wife. She lived with him for six months. "He got back together with his wife, so I got kicked out. I was homeless again." Linda moved into a women's shelter in Casa Grande. But when her time was up, she moved back to the group home on the reservation for a short while. In search of more services, she moved to Tucson, where she met her boyfriend, with whom she now lives. "The hardest thing about living here is getting around," Linda said. "I've been learning how to ride the buses, how to get from one place to another." She doesn't like being in public, unless she's with her boyfriend. "I feel better being home. I think people are talking about me out there." But she knows she doesn't do well at home, unless someone is with her. "I need help most of the time, sometimes just to remember to get out of bed." Linda has held a few jobs since moving to Tucson. She bused tables at the University of Arizona, and cleaned hotel rooms. None of the jobs lasted long. "I can't hold on to a job." She survives on $480 a month from Social Security. "I can't manage money, so ATPT manages it for me." Arizona Training Program Tucson is run through the Department of Economic Security's Department of Developmental Disabilities. Caseworkers help Linda budget her money. Sometimes the young woman thinks it might be fun to have a baby. "It's hard to remember to take birth control," she said. "I've been talking with my boyfriend about having a baby, but I don't think I'm ready for it yet." If she were to get pregnant, she wouldn't drink, she said. "These ladies who are pregnant, why do they drink? The kid ends up suffering. Moms don't know how much damage they do to their kids' lives," she said. Linda is happy the facial features that mark her as a person with fetal alcohol syndrome have softened with age. "I'm glad nobody can tell. But it's hard for them to understand me. I just wish my problem would go away." [NEXT]