After spending two and a half years in a nursing home, Jerome was able to start a new path in his community with the help of the Money Follows the Person program. Read Jerome’s story of hope and healing.
Jerome’s Story
“Strengths, Stability, and Sobriety” is the working title of a book Jerome may one day write. He is not the same man who entered the nursing home unable to walk after a grand mal seizure, but a far healthier version of his former self after much hard work and soul searching. Jerome was a good student through 8th grade, but in high school he made poor decisions and became addicted to drugs and alcohol. He was charged for breaking and entering cars, and then sent to a juvenile detention center. Returning to the same negative environment, surrounded by the same people, he went back to the “street life.”
A father of six, he wanted to be there for his children, but he was not able to provide financially for them, nor more importantly, give them quality time due to his addictions. The court ordered him to attend a parenting program to help him regain visitation rights to two of his children, which helped him much more than expected. He feels that the program experience was not just court appointed for him, but an arrow that pointed him to his life’s calling to help others. He continues to attend in order to set a positive example for other fathers and to better co-parent his children.
Many people are proud of his accomplishments. “I’m lovin’ who I am today,” he says. He owes his ability to walk again to the great support of physical and occupational therapy. His road to sobriety began while he was still in the nursing home through the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) groups he attended. The active listening of his sponsor and encouragement to express his feelings through writing have been key to his healing. Poems dedicated to the nurses, aides, social workers, and therapy staff speak of his respect, admiration, and love to those who helped him regain what he had lost.
The facility’s social worker put Jerome in touch with Money Follows the Person (MFP). Through the efforts of his transition and housing coordinators, he was able to begin a new path in the community after two and a half years in the nursing home. When the housing coordinator gave him two apartment choices, one in his old town and one in a new town, he chose the new location to be away from his old life.
Together with the transition coordinator, they furnished his new apartment with the necessities: a bed, dresser, sofa, kitchen table/chairs, utensils, food, and other essentials. The transition coordinator worked with Jerome to find medical transportation so he can continue his occupational, physical, and behavioral therapy. His transition went smoothly, and he is so grateful to be living in an accessible, clean apartment close to the hospital and a quick train ride from his family.
Using skills from the parenting class, Jerome continues to work on reclaiming his relationships and time lost with his children. He also continues to work on his physical health, going to the community gym and swimming at the Boys and Girls Club. Two more nursing home residents have moved into his apartment building through MFP, and his next plan is to start an AA group in the building to help others. His advice to others in a nursing home who want to move is “Don’t give up!”
MFP Demonstration Background
The Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration, created by Section 6071 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, supports States’ efforts to “rebalance” their long-term support systems, so that individuals can choose where to live and receive services. One of the major objectives of Money Follows the Person (MFP) is “to increase the use of home and community-based, rather than institutional, long-term care services.” MFP supports this by offering grantee States an enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage on qualified services. MFP also offers States the flexibility to provide supplemental services, such as assistive technology and enhanced transition services, to assist in successful transitions. States are then expected to reinvest the savings over the cost of institutional services to rebalance their long-term services and supports for older adults and people with disabilities to a community-based orientation.
