Shelter Association of Washtenaw County

Shelter Association Success Stories

We are proud that so many of the people who access our services are seeing significant and lasting changes in their lives. The people below are just a handful of our many success stories. Over 1,200 people access these services every year. Last year, nearly 55% of our Night Shelter clients found either temporary or permanent housing. Countless others have found jobs, gotten health care, and received helpful referrals.

Read on to discover some of the stories behind the numbers.

George

George is in his late fifties, but his developmental disabilities give him the sweet, sunny disposition of a child. His case manager signed George up for disability, connected him to ongoing mental health services, and even helped to get the first photo identification George ever had in his life. From the Shelter Association, George was able to move into senior housing. He gets daily visits from his mental health worker to offer support. He’s been successfully housed for six months now, and he has lots of friends in the building.

Jane D.

Jane is a well-educated 73 year old widow, and one year ago she became homeless. Jane had struggled with addiction for 30 years; her addiction had alienated her family and damaged her health. When Jane was evicted from senior housing for the second time, she found herself alone on the streets. She soon became ill and was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia.

Upon her discharge from the hospital she found herself once again with nowhere to turn. One morning, as Jane was eating breakfast at St. Andrews, she met Natalie Mobley. Natalie is one of the nurse practitioners from the SAWC Health Clinic, and attending the breakfast program several times a month is one of her outreach activities to expand access to health care. Natalie talked with Jane about the Shelter Association and encouraged her to participate in the night shelter program.

We worked with Jane to get her into outpatient treatment and she started going to AA meetings. For the first time in years, she was clean and sober. Jane had also suffered from depression for most of her life; once she came to the Delonis Center we connected her with a psychiatrist and supports through PORT (the Community Mental Health outreach team).

Over the 90 days she spent with us, Jane started to reestablish communication with her adult children; as her recovery progressed they began to repair their relationship. Family relationships are an important part of the social safety net which most individuals take for granted; because that critical support system is so often damaged for the individuals we serve, the Shelter Association has a clinical social worker on staff who specifically explores family relationships and the possibility of reunification with each woman we serve.

Today, Jane has been sober for nearly a year and successfully housed for eight months. She continues to maintain a relationship with her children, and has benefited from the relationship her landlord maintains with the Shelter Association’s housing coordinator. She is now living the quiet, comfortable life we all envision for our family members in their retirement.

Like each person we serve, Jane’s story is unique. Through a plan developed to address her specific circumstances, and the right set of supports, she was able to get sober, address her health issues, find housing and rebuild her family relationships. At a time in her life when things looked bleak, she found hope, help and support at the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County.

watch a movie about Jane's experience

Joe M.
Joe knew he needed to take better care of himself, but he couldn’t afford the $30 glucometer that could save him from a diabetic stroke or even death. Like so many of our neighbors who live in poverty, he assumed that there was no way he could afford the medical attention he so urgently needed to control his diabetes. His situation was desperate. Not only was his medical condition untreated, he had become homeless; a combination that is often deadly.

Joe came to the Robert J. Delonis Center to help him end the poverty that had caused his homelessness; it was then that Joe discovered that he could get medical care through the Shelter Association’s Health Clinic. At a Shelter Association health fair, organized by volunteer nursing students from the U of M, Joe had his blood sugar tested; it was dangerously low.

The clinic staff and volunteers leapt into action. His blood sugar was raised to a safe level, and then Joe and a nurse practitioner spent a lot of time discussing his condition and how to monitor and treat it. Joe was given a glucometer and test strips so he could manage his condition, and he was enrolled in a health plan so he could get ongoing access to primary health care.

“People die or are permanently disabled because they don’t have access to even the most basic health care; that’s just wrong. Our community pays the extreme cost of care after a catastrophic event, but it would cost so much less, in lives and in dollars, to provide the preventative care to avoid it altogether.” -- Rosangel Cruz-Barrera, Medical Case Manager

There is a health care crisis in our nation, especially for those living in poverty. The Shelter Association addresses this issue by providing access to health care to anyone in need, regardless of ability to pay.