I met Bill* in November 2010. His 48 years had been pockmarked with arrests, drug, and alcohol addiction, failed marriages, and over ten years of homelessness up and down the east coast. When he landed in Lancaster County he connected with the department for Mental Health and Mental Retardation (MHMR) and was diagnosed as having bipolar affective disorder and poly-substance dependence. He lived under bridges, with friends, and in cars until he landed at the Water Street Rescue Mission (WSRM). His aggressive nature, verbal outbursts, and threatening physical stature made him unwelcome everywhere and he, in turn, lived up to others’ expectations. He fell at WSRM and shattered his ankle so severely that he was in need of major surgery. Not having any other choice, the hospital could not release him to the mission or the streets so he was placed in a nursing home with rehabilitative services. There, he intimidated the staff and other residents (all much older than he), verbally abused his caregivers and, in a year’s time, gained 130 pounds by doing little other than lying in bed, ordering take out food with his social security money, and refusing to participate in his recovery. The nursing home exhausted their resources, financial as well as human on him, and gave him an exit date.
At this time he was still unable to walk due to his un-rehabbed leg and girth, as he had now ballooned to 370 pounds. One thing he had going for him was a section 8 voucher, one of only a few set aside for Lancaster County residents, for those transitioning from nursing homes into apartments. This voucher was through a program called AIM (Abilities in Motion) and it proved to be a saving grace.
After dozens of apartment walk-throughs with his Tabor case manager, who was connected to him through the MHMR financed program PATH (a program Tabor partners with MHMR), he was finally accepted for an apartment at a local apartment complex in March of 2011.
Today, the transformation of this man is nothing less than miraculous. His apartment is spotless. He has lost more than 100 pounds and has a goal to lose 50 more. On December 19 he graduated from a “quit smoking” program at Lancaster General Hospital. He sees his physical therapist weekly and is walking with a slight limp and a cane now, but says both will disappear soon. He meets with his peer support through Recovery Insight on a weekly basis and has made a real and long-lasting friendship there. In the apartment complex he has become a respected and, amazingly, relied-upon neighbor. Others have come to him for help with personal issues and the pride this has given him is stunningly apparent. He has re-connected with his oldest son and is starting to rebuild a relationship with his sister…two things he said he never believed could have happened. Today he is drug, alcohol, tobacco, and symptom free and a complete joy to be around.
Bill attributes all of this “to the grace of God and His ability to put others in my life who were willing to take the time to see me for who I was: a desperate person who was close to death. Every day, I take time to thank God for all his many blessings and for intervening in, and saving, my life.”
-Guy Boyer, Tabor Case Manager
*Name changed to protect client’s identity
