“I was getting weaker and weaker, and breathing had become very difficult,” Karen recalls.
This was just the beginning of challenges for Karen – an active, healthy mom of 3. She soon received a diagnosis no 48-year-old wants to hear: congestive heart failure, resulting in a need for a heart transplant. Her medical issues required her to stop working and as you know, loss of one income can be devastating. For Karen and her family, it resulted in eviction and 7 years of homelessness.
After three heart surgeries, medical problems and financial difficulties, her family was fragmented. She was living with friends in Maryland, her youngest child was with relatives, her adult daughter was in a homeless shelter, and her husband, who had lost his job, crammed in with his sister. Not a mother’s vision for a happy family life.
She was about to lose her medical assistance and immediately found a pro-bono attorney, who helped her maintain her insurance and get into DC General Shelter. Fortunately she was one of a few families who only stayed 6 days before coming to Community of Hope’s Girard Street Apartments. Here her family started to come back together.
“Girard Street was a true blessing. When I moved in, my medical treatments required me to have an IV bag, so I was grateful to have a clean, apartment-style setting,” Karen explained. She didn’t have much time to get settled, within days she was off to the hospital for another heart surgery. Karen gets very emotional when recalling the surgery and recovery. “I was in the ICU several times. I caught severe infections while in the hospital. It was very scary.” Despite it all, eventually she recovered – and got back to her charismatic, boisterous self. Feeling grateful to be alive, Karen says having her family reunited means the world to her. “My husband and children make all of the difference – they have been here for me every step of the way.”
Then they got more great news. They had been approved for our permanent supportive housing program and would finally be able to live in their own apartment. For Karen, having her own home again is one of her proudest accomplishments. For her husband and adult daughter, employment specialists worked with them to find jobs.
Now, Karen looks forward to the future. Her youngest daughter starts high school next year. And if her health improves, she hopes to take a road trip with her husband and spend more time with her eight grandchildren. But her most pressing need is never far from her mind. She is on the list to receive a heart transplant. By this time next year, she hopes to have accomplished another major feat – getting a new heart.
