HOUSING SERVICES
Assists consumers finding housing, and advocates for consumers when conducting housing searches.
Here at WCIL consumer needs and requests can overlap from one department to another. Transition services recently had a consumer who was ready to leave a nursing facility and needed to make the move as soon as possible.
I started to conduct housing searches, and contacted one of my resources in Long Beach that has shared housing (roommate options). A five-bedroom house that rents rooms out individually or you can share with another person. The tough part of housing is the consumer's past credit history and rental history. Well, the landlord was willing to work with us, and accepted the consumer. That was the easy part. Now, I had to create a plan to assist the consumer over to the house. He used a wheelchair, and did not have transportation, or know how to take public transportation from the nursing facility to Long Beach. Along with help from WCIL staff, we developed a plan. The plan was to have the consumer take a taxi to the Red Line, with WCIL taxi vouchers in hand. I would follow the taxi to the red line. Park my car, get in my wheelchair and get on the Red Line with the consumer, and introduce him to the Los Angeles public transportation system. Once on the metro line, we traveled through Los Angeles to the next metro connection, the Blue Line. After several miles of traveling we finally ended up in Long Beach, where using our bus tokens from WCIL, we transferred to the Big Blue Bus. Finally we were strapped down on the bus and ready to travel the final miles to the corner of the Dream Shared Housing units. Safe and sound, with the landlord waiting to welcome him, the consumer started his new life of independence.
