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…
Wash your hands.
Western medicine is an amazing achievement in human history. To have banished from daily life the unsanitary conditions that breed viruses, bacteria and parasites is a major reason why humans are flourishing on the earth. Yet even in the most affluent of countries and the richest of cities, the causes of a great percentage of sickness and disease survive. A simple illness becomes a major illness when given the right conditions: A dirty kitchen breeds Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, a cut on the foot becomes a wound that won’t heal, a cold becomes pneumonia.
Every case is different but after a while, working within the system that was created to help the people so affected by poverty and disease, you can’t help but start to see patterns at work. Just as a thing is impossible to ignore once its existence is known, how can you turn your back on those in need? The elderly, the sick and the disabled living in society are often living in squalor, for no reason other than they can’t get around to clean like they once may have, and it’s unlikely they can afford to pay a cleaning service on a fixed income.
It’s the call no one ever wants to get. The one that comes in the middle of dinner, the middle of movie night, in the middle of the night: your loved one is in the hospital? How? Where? Why? What happened? A flood of questions inundates the mind, but the answers trickle out like the mirage of an oasis in the desert. These are the calls we get on a weekly and even a daily basis: can you please find a clean place to live for my father, my aunt, this patient? At the same time we can help a family member, a friend, a neighbor, we can also help stop the spread of unnecessary sickness and relieve the overcrowding in the hospitals, in the emergency rooms and in the shelters.
Wash your hands.
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
Beverly is a recent addition to the Helping Hearts Foundation. A 70-year-old Cancer patient, she had been a victim of an ongoing deception from a family member who was stealing the rent money–as well as whatever other resources she could get her hands on, including Beverly’s monthly Social Security benefit–and funneling it toward her own illicit activities, which include but are not limited to drug abuse, pilfering medication, larceny and issuing threats.
Beverly, who thought the money she gave to her family member was going toward paying rent and utilities, buying groceies and gas, to her surprise was notified by the management of the apartment complex she resided in, that she was to be evicted at the end of the month due to non-payment. Thankfully a kind neighbor stepped in to provide electricity for Beverly’s oxygen usage. A few calls later and the Helping Hearts Foundation was notified by Beverly’s case worker at Advocates For Seniors of the situation and despite having little to no time to prepare the usual style of placement preferred, were able to get Beverly housed in a safe and comfortable environment the very next day. A case has also been started by APS (Adult Protective Services) on the matter.
So Beverly, no more deceitful family members grifting the rent. No more devious boyfriends threatening abuse. No more wondering if the medication your life depends on will be there in the morning. Now all you have to worry about is what to have for breakfast and what to do with the rest of your day.
