Helping Hearts Foundation Resident Carol “Shorty” W. from Helping Hearts Foundation on Vimeo.
Social services should be afforded the ability to go see the living conditions and doctors should once again get in the practice of prescribing nutrition. Had that happened at the first sign of trouble on a doctors visit for compulsive eating years ago and mental health follow up into the home…this…
Helping Hearts Foundation Resident Alberto from Helping Hearts Foundation on Vimeo.
Alberto’s is a bittersweet story of a man with a loving family, a positive outlook on life, boundless energy who was diagnosed with multiple terminal illnesses and spent his last days as a resident of the Helping Hearts Foundation. Surrounded by family and friends, he was smiling and talking up to the end. We wish that he may rest in peace.
Helping Hearts Foundation is an IRS recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Sacramento, California that was created to help those in need of everyday living assistance. We believe our work lies in relieving the stress of the emergency rooms, hospitals, shelters, and the working poor who, due to an unending economic downturn, can no longer properly provide for their loved ones on a fixed low income. We want to be there for those people that are misplaced or are difficult to place, people from skilled nursing and referral agencies that have a difficult combination of problems to address, and people who need a high level of care and have a low income.
Helping Hearts Resident Rescue - Tara
It’s easy to take a safe, secure and healthy living environment for granted. Most people grow up without having to worry about these seemingly simple requirements. They are just there, provided by an invisible network of parents and family, friends and co-workers. It is a part of the social contract. Yet for a small, but growing percentage of people, cracks in the network are showing. The contract is showing its age.
The global economy is unpredictable. Jobs are shipped overseas. Unemployment keeps on going up. Prices on basic needs like food and water, shelter and utilities are rising. Many people who are lucky enough to have a job live paycheck to paycheck, unable to save anything for a rainy day. Those that don’t live hand to mouth and often depend on the government for any of the following Social Security programs:
What happens when you wake up in the hospital after having been struck down by a sudden illness, hit by a car, or worse debilitated by a disease you had no idea ran in your family? Do you have a healthy savings account? Family to care for you? Medical insurance? Or are you a part of the growing number of Americans who walk around without a safety net? Assisted living, skilled nursing, and board and care facilities can be outrageously expensive. What is the alternative in today’s downturn economy? Overcrowded living conditions in vermin-infested residential housing? Is that the American dream or the American nightmare?
Tara is an example of a humble and selfless mother of four who has seen more than her share of doctors offices. Recently having undergone a hip replacement surgery and scheduled to undergo a replacement on the other hip as well as both knees in the coming year, she found herself living in a house teeming with both tenants and vermin. Overcrowded with individuals on fixed-low incomes as well as infested with rodents, cockroaches and toxic black mold, Tara realized that it was time for a change.
Within a few hours of informing her UC Davis Medical center orthopedist of her living situation Helping Hearts Foundation had gotten in contact with her and was on their way out to her place of residence. The photos below represent how they found her and–after explaining the Helping Hearts Foundation system to her (she agreed to relocate the following day)–providing her with a tour of the house she moved into.
Perhaps the phrase what a difference a day makes has never rung so true.
Helping Hearts Foundation Resident Brad survived a lot more than Detox
Piled up mattresses and broken down, disused furnishings litter the walkway up to Brad and Tim’s room and board. The smell hits you before you open the door. You can’t quite say what it is, other than rot, but it’s pungent. So much so, Jimmy and Pak both need clean suits, masks and gloves before entering. Cockroaches lazily feasting upon trash, piled up for months, in the open. Toxic black mold covers the ceiling like a layer of paint. Cracked walls full of jagged breaks and holes, impassable hallways and the flooring rotting away beneath your feet have created squalid living conditions.
When Helping Hearts walked in they were two. When they walked out Helping Hearts had grown richer by two residents–Brad (pictured) & his brother Tim–who have been with the organization for more than a year now. Their previous living situation proved to be so infested with fleas, ticks, roaches, rats and other pests that none of their furniture could be moved to their new house and their clothing had to be sanitized by professionals.
Seeing good people in bad housing is a terrible thing, but all too common in situations where people in need of physical and / or psychological help have only their monthly pensions on which to depend. Veterans like Brad, who looks after Tim, do receive a bit more, but often it is still not enough to provide safe and secure shelter that is convenient to hospitals and public transportation.
Their new house is a far cry from what they had convinced themselves was normal. Now they live in relative comfort and security and are in close proximity to healthcare facilities, bus and light rail, supermarkets and shopping centers as well as parks. They have a house, but what’s more, they have a community of people that understand what they have gone through living all around them. That’s more than a house. That’s a home.
Brad & Tim's Helping Hearts Foundation Residence
