Gabi and 5-year-old Emma soon to be homeless

Our friend’s daughter, Gabi, who experienced homelessness as a child, has worked hard to maintain a home for herself and her daughter, but a recent debilitating back injury has kept her from being able to work at all, and without our help, she will soon be homeless. She has been disabled and unable to sit or stand for more than fifteen minutes so has needed her mother’s around-the-clock care and transportation to appointments.

After seven frustrating weeks of back and forth with her health insurance company, her request for an MRI has been denied three times. At this point, insurance has finally approved physical therapy, but the one company the insurance approved does not have openings for several more weeks. Gabi is having to live each day with excruciating pain and will not take narcotic pain medication due to its addictive properties. We hope to raise enough money to pay for twelve sessions of physical therapy with a place we have found that is accepting new patients. We believe this will give her the relief she needs until the insurance comes through. We hope that with physical therapy she can get back to work.

With the progress she has made on her own, she has just begun driving herself to appointments but, compounding her problem, yesterday the brakes on her car seized up and must be replaced in order for her car to be drivable. She needs a working car to get back and forth to appointments and to work once she can stand or sit for more than a few minutes at a time. The bid to get her car running is $1300, but she only paid $1000 for the car which has no heat and is basically unsafe so we think it would be better if we can get her a safe and reliable used car.