The call for help on behalf of an older husband and wife in need came from the Greenwood Fire Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t in Shepherd Community Center\u2019s target area for assisting neighbors. And it wasn\u2019t even in Marion County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Shane Hardwick, a member of Shepherd\u2019s Shalom Project team and a lieutenant of special operations with Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services, knew that Shepherd could help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greenwood firefighters had been called to a dialysis center in Johnson County to assist the couple. What they found is a prime example of how poverty can lead to one disaster after another. But also how compassionate, thoughtful intervention can make a life-changing difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the dialysis center, the husband had encountered a seemingly insurmountable problem. A wheel on his wife\u2019s wheelchair had broken, and he couldn\u2019t lift her or the wheelchair into an old delivery van he had tried to convert into a wheelchair transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know their whole situation, but we know they need a lot of help,\u201d a Greenwood firefighter noted in the referral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After receiving the referral, Hardwick visited the couple at their home on the southside of Indianapolis. He quickly saw the range and severity of the problems the man and woman faced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wife is blind, and her husband can\u2019t read. The wife\u2019s diabetes had gone uncontrolled for years, triggering the loss of her eyesight and the amputation of a leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Doorways in the couple\u2019s small house were too narrow for the wheelchair to pass through. So, the wife was confined to the living room, where she slept on a makeshift hospital bed with her husband on a sofa next to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe husband handed us a stack of papers. They were waiver applications for health insurance that he couldn\u2019t read and didn’t know what to do with,\u201d Hardwick said. \u201cThis was an example of poverty restricting people\u2019s ability to advocate for themselves and navigate complicated systems. Standing in their tiny home, in a cramped living room with a couch and hospital bed in it, reading the instructions on the applications, I too felt overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To find help for the couple, Hardwick contacted Amy Wallace, a social worker at Shepherd, who began working to ensure that the couple received the services they were eligible for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After months of completing forms and following up with agencies, Wallace received good news shortly before Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c(The woman) has been approved for full Medicaid!\u201d Wallace said. \u201cHer care manager is working to get things going for her as soon as possible. She has gone from having no insurance and having limited access to food to now having Medicaid. And she will have Medicare by February. She also will have home-delivered meals and will have in-home health-care services as soon as they can get it going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The funding also paid to widen doorways in the couple\u2019s home, modify their bathroom to accommodate the wife\u2019s disabilities, ensure access to prescription medications, secure more reliable access to dialysis and provide a more suitable bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is still work to be done, but this family will be left far better off than how we found them,\u201d Hardwick said. \u201cIt truly is an honor to be part of this program. Thank you again for this partnership and the continued support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The call for help on behalf of an older husband and wife in need came from the Greenwood Fire Department. It wasn\u2019t in Shepherd Community Center\u2019s target area for assisting neighbors. And it wasn\u2019t even in Marion County. But Shane Hardwick, a member of Shepherd\u2019s Shalom Project team and a lieutenant of special operations with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-shepherd","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftindy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}