Former homeless woman hopes to use her experience to help others

Sitting inside a renovated school bus listening to Saudia Grant sing was a mix of beautiful and bizarre, but her passionate song and the story of her life turned the surreal into inspiring.

“I made up my mind that I was not going to be homeless. I'm not going to allow anyone to just pick me up and then drop me.”

The 28-year-old from Jamaica came to America five years ago as a student in the summer travel-work program.

Although, love and chasing the American dream of becoming a musician kept her here.

And the Eastern Shore has been home ever since, but home doesn't mean she had a roof over her head.
 
“I found myself homeless and I was living in shelters to the point where I was camping out in the woods at one point,” says Grant.

Saudia tells us after her relationship fell apart she ended up in shelters, which then led to eventually camping in the woods in West Salisbury.

It was not only a financial struggle, but a mental one too.

“I was literally in a really deep depression where I could not take myself out of my nook. I just felt dry and depleted, I felt this huge sense of lack and I knew I could do more I knew I was created to do more and I knew this could not be it.”
 
She believes her music pulled her out of that darkness.

Saudia got a job in Ocean City and saved up enough money to buy a school bus, which is now her home.

The seats are gone replaced by a mattress, a changing area, and a table. She has a laptop and a screen with which she records Youtube videos.

Everything from makeup tutorials to singing, and stories about her life living in a bus. She hopes all of this, her experiences, can help others struggling with homelessness.

“I do want to stop in at shelters and help out and donate what I can. I want to inform people that they can get out of it because I was there and I'm out.”

The bus is stationary right now, but Saudia tells 47 ABC the goal is to make enough money to hit the road sharing her story and her music.

A drive that keeps her moving both literally and figuratively.

“Not until I get it I have to get it I just have to because I will not allow myself to go back down, because when you're down there it feels like not in a cave but underground.”