Seven years ago, Matt was living with his mother and three sisters in substandard low-income housing in Lynn, Massachusetts, a suburb 10 miles North of Boston. Because of some complications and the typical progression of his disease, Matt had to be hospitalized. During his hospitalization, Matt’s muscles weakened rapidly and soon thereafter he was no longer able to breathe without a ventilator. As a result, Matt’s mother could no longer care for him at home as her small apartment could not accommodate the wheelchair and ventilator that Matt now required. Matt was transferred to an acute long-term care facility because he could not find any accessible housing. This facility also had no accessible housing to accommodate Matt, and they began making plans to transfer him to a chronic care institution, where he would likely live for the rest of his life.

Ron Steenbruggen was employed as a Respiratory Rehabilitation Specialist at the acute care facility where Matt was being temporarily housed and was very much opposed to placing bright twenty-year old Matt in an institution for the rest of his life. As a Respiratory Therapist, Ron had worked with other patients with Muscular Dystrophy, and had observed many of them choose to stop medical care and end their lives because they felt hopeless and helpless at the prospect of spending the rest of their life in an institution. Ron could not bear the thought of this becoming Matt’s fate, so he decided to help Matt find accessible housing.

Ron and Matt soon located an apartment for Matt and renovated it to meet his needs.

Today, seven years later, Matt still lives in this apartment and he is thriving. Prior to living independently in his own apartment, Matt was hospitalized several times each year for pneumonia, bedsores, dehydration, and malnutrition. Since moving into his accessible apartment, amazingly, Matt has never had to return to a hospital and has not had any infections or medical issues. He holds down a part-time job and lives a very independent, productive and self-sufficient life.

Due to the success of Matt’s experience in an independent living situation, and due to the fact that in Massachusetts, there is currently a four to fourteen year wait for accessible housing, Matt and Ron were inspired to help others like Matt. They decided to create Matt’s Place, a community housing project that will provide accessible apartments for other technology dependent individuals like Matt.

Recently, however, Matt had a major setback – his landlord has financial problems and, unbeknownst to Matt, his landlord is being foreclosed upon. Matt and Ron have spent everything they had (around $30,000) to modify Matt’s apartment to make it accessible for Matt, and now Matt will be forced to leave. After flourishing in his own place for seven years, Matt is back to square one. Matt and Ron need help. HCL’s help. Your help. HCL is seeking to immediately raise $50,000 to find a new apartment for Matt and renovate it to meet his needs.

HCL’s longer-term goal is to raise approximately $500,000 to complete the Matt’s Place model project that will include accessible apartments to house eight technology-dependent individuals like Matt.

Help Matt Today

HCL Case Study-"Charlie"

Circumstance: Charlie is a disabled WWII veteran that, like many of his counterparts from this era, worked hard all his life to make ends meet and now in retirement has found himself in a difficult position. He was living in an older home with an increasing amount of required maintenance that he no longer could take care of himself or pay to have it done for him. In addition, the home no longer served his needs as Charlie could no longer access much of the home because of his inability to climb the two flights of stairs. To make matters worse taking care of his personal daily needs was proving to be more than he could handle and there was only enough money coming in from SSN and a small VA disability pension to pay the monthly bills not to address his ever increasing personal needs. Charlie never wanted a handout or charity but he was rapidly running out of options and his future looked bleak as he was going to lose his home, his independence and be forced to move into a state or VA nursing home where he would just exist for the rest of his years. Charlie detested the thought of this and was no longer looking forward to living.

With caring persuasion, Charlie reconsidered all his options, including his reluctance of dealing with the VA, and agreed to enlist the help of others who had the tools and necessary experience to help him with his VA settlement, his housing situation and his personal needs.

Solution: The first step was for Charlie to face his fears and with help approach the VA and go through an extensive evaluation with the goal of reopening his disability case to increase his award amount and the available benefits. Concurrently with the VA plan was to work with area volunteers to fix up his home so it to be put up for sale and then when the time came also agree to pack and move his belongings. A local builder was located who agreed to construct a brand new handicap friendly home at a discount if others would help obtain the land for the new home as well as help with some of final finishing work. A local realtor graciously agreed to donate his time/commission and to use his expertise not only to market and sell Charlie’s existing home but to also find a suitable lot at a discount for the new home. And a local mortgage broker as well donated his time/commission to put the new financing package together.

Happy Ending: Today, five years later, Charlie now lives in a new home specially built to address a seniors needs. His new home has handicap access, wider halls and doorways, roll in shower, custom lighting and other custom features, “smart home” technology and the equity in this new home is actually about twice the total value of his pervious home! His monthly disability check has increased from around $200 month to now over $2600 per month with an additional $26,500 that was paid as a lump sum payment. Charlie has also received a new artificial knee, artificial hip, hearing aids, electric wheelchair, car wheelchair carrier and more as a result of the VA and other senior specific programs. And Charlie’s increased monthly cash flow now supports a part time caregiver and he is now able to put money into his saving account for the first time in many years. This combined effort, spanning more than a 2 year timeframe, has created a windfall that Charlie still can’t believe is true!

Charlie is but one example of the hundreds of thousands of seniors with special needs in our country. HCL empowers individuals like Charlie by developing special needs housing solutions, promoting homeownership, and encouraging entrepreneurship for economically challenged individuals with special needs that are genuinely motivated to achieve self-sufficiency, and help others like them do likewise.

One of the most effective ways to promote special needs housing solutions across the country is to support the growth of other community-based start-up nonprofit organizations. Toward this end, HCL will serve as a nonprofit incubator, providing fiscal sponsorship and other support services for small start-up housing and real estate related nonprofits that have not yet received their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.