Micah Frazier and his three children don't have beds to sleep in, nor a table and chairs at which to eat. But they do have a home of their own, and that in itself means a lot.

"We're all starting off brand new," Frazier said. "And it's a wonderful feeling."

Two weeks ago, the Fraziers were living at Urban Ministries of Durham's homeless shelter. They'd been there seven months, after losing their home in Raleigh, briefly moving in with Frazier's mother and casting about for a shelter that would take a single dad with kids. The situation was stressful, to say the least. But some good has come out of the experience.

"He's grown a lot, like with his kids," said UMD caseworker Mandy Sackreiter. "They've gotten a lot closer."

Frazier, 34, has a criminal past. After his own home became the target of an invasion, he said, his children intervened to make him think about his life. With convictions and prison on his records, little in his pockets and eviction in his face, he wanted to make a change.

"I hit rock bottom," Frazier said.

He had a list of Raleigh shelters, but, "none of them would take me in with children," he said. "They all said women with children or [two-parent] families."

After two weeks with his mother in Chapel Hill, "things weren't working out." Someone suggested Urban Ministries of Durham. So Frazier, Christopher age 6 and Courtney age 11 (daughter Destiny, 14, was living with other relatives) moved into a single room in a new town.

"It was everything new," Frazier said. "Living in one bedroom with my kids. I was trying to be sure they were all right, and I didn't know where I could get a job.

"I pretty much walked three-quarters of Durham ... door to door," he said. He tried craigslist. Sackreiter gave him leads and helped him write a resume. After five months, he got one night's work through a temp agency.

"I've never seen anybody work so hard to find a job," Sackreiter said. "Due to his criminal background, he had a hard time."

Eventually, the calls to work became more frequent. Now, through three temp agencies, Frazier has work two or three days a week and he's going into a chef's training program through the Employment Security Commission. With some income, he was eligible for help finding and paying for a place to live. That didn't come easy, either.

"We applied to four or five different places," said Dwight Bradford, a Housing for New Hope caseworker. "They didn't want to rent to him."

Finally, Bradford persuaded a landlord to give him a break. But the months of shelter living were taking a toll, especially on Courtney.

"She probably wanted it the worst," he said. "I guess kids who live in the shelter feel pressured or whatever about their living situtation or conditions. I could tell, because she was making straight As and Bs before we got [to UMD] and she just dropped down."

Once the family was assured a home of their own, "She started getting happy again and her grades came back up," Frazier said. "She was invited to Washington, D.C. for a Junior Achievement program."

Destiny is coming to join her father and siblings this summer. And after months of having sympathetic counsel and listeners Frazier has a new approach to being Dad.

"My father never said he loved me. But I say that, I say to my kids, 'I love you' every day. ... We've become a tighter family, I can tell you that."