Mar 23, 2009
Chapter helps homeless couple come in from the cold
For seven months, Jeff and Jean Henning called their ’93 Mercury Cougar home. During cold winter nights, they’d huddle under a sleeping bag and four quilts to stay warm.
Both unable to work because of their health conditions – Jeff has disabling MS and Jean has back and heart problems – they lived on Jeff’s meager General Assistance Unemployable (GAU) income while they waited for additional government benefits to come through.
Help was hard to find… until it found them. All it took was a missed MS scholarship check and a phone call to the Greater Washington Chapter.
The scholarship recipient, the Hennings’ daughter Jessie, had called the Chapter to find out why her check hadn’t arrived. Turns out the check had been sent to her parents, but came back undeliverable.
That’s how Client Services Coordinator Debra Maas learned that the Hennings were living in their car.
She immediately connected the couple to the Chapter’s financial assistance program, which offers “a hand up” to people with MS who are facing temporary financial hardships.
With the rental assistance they received through the program, the couple was able to get into an affordable apartment in Lakewood, near Tacoma. They also received help with their utility payments.
“We know it can be hard to ask, but we understand and we’re here to help,” says Debra.
The day they got their things out of storage and moved in was the day Jean knew the worst was behind them.
“If it wasn’t for the Chapter, I’m not sure how we would have done all this,” Jean says.
Their daughter, Jessie, is also thankful… and relieved. In addition to her classes at Alaska Pacific University, she has been working and sending money home. “I can sleep much easier now knowing they have a roof over their heads,” she says.
The Hennings are much more financially secure now that Jeff recently started receiving his Veteran’s Administration pension of $1,459 a month, a lordly sum after trying to live on almost nothing for so long.
Jeff had been a drafter at Boeing until his MS symptoms and resulting absenteeism caused him to lose his job in 1997. A series of other jobs followed, but his fatigue and short-term memory lapses finally forced him to quit work and apply for Social Security Disability benefits. Fortunately, as a Marine Corps veteran, his health care and disease-modifying drugs are covered.
With MS, no one can tell what the future holds, but the Hennings are counting their blessings. They have a home. They have an income. And their 21-year-old daughter is close to a college degree.
“We made it,” says Jean. “We’re on our way up.”