Help this Mother & Daughter Avoid Homelessness

A Hard Working Woman and Her Autistic Daughter Need Your Help to Live

Jodi Farmer and her daughter are in desperate need for rent money to cover a period of multiple months as she awaits the lengthy approval process for Social Security disability. Jodi applied to Social Security Disability from severe spinal injuries over a year ago and has not received any response and cannot hire an attorney to contest anything unless and until she gets a denial letter. Her autistic daughter is finally receiving SSI after a lengthy wait. While they are grateful to have that money, it’s less than a thousand dollars and has to cover food, insurance, gas, and utilities – an impossible task. Up until now, they had been using the back log of payments from SSI that was paid retro to her daughter’s original application date. But the money has run out. She’s debt free but down to the last of her savings.

Jodi has a record of service helping others

We met Jodi – who had been raised in foster care – when she began working as a live-in full time care giver in 1985 to my wife’s aunt Modayne Wester who suffered from crippling MS; she passed away in July of 1997.

After Mrs. Wester’s passing, Jodi began working at the Renaissance Marquis nursing home’s night shift so she could attend classes of becoming a nurse while on a restricted time table as a single mom. Unfortunately, in 2001 she sustained a back injury caring for one of her patients. This injury limited her activities for over a year and eventually took her out of work never to return as a CNA. In 2003 she was put on home rest with physical therapy pain management, and sent to doctors to evaluate her limitations. Knowing nursing was no longer an option, she attended night school to obtain a business degree. After graduating in 2006, Jodi was able to get a desk job at Village Theater Inc. in Rome where she served as the assistant to the VP of Operations as the company’s bookkeeper. The company was willing to work with Jodi due to her limitations and was very understanding when she had to be out of work, which was not very often. Her spinal injury continued to decline as the years passed.

Jodi called on again to help with Alzheimer's care

In 2018, our family called on Jodi once more. While Jodi continued to work at the theater, she moved in with Mrs. Wester’s daughter Kendall Wester (my wife Donna’s first cousin) who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Many of you might know Kendall as she was a retired special education teacher from the Rome City Schools. Jodi’s daughter, Tracie, sat with Kendall during the day until Jodi got home from the theater to take over.

COVID closes down her job temporarily and then permanently

The theater closed March 26, 2020, due to COVID. Kendall’s Alheimers progressed until she became bedridden. While there was hospice support, Jodi’s care for Kendall resulted in additional spinal damage to an already damaged back. Kendall passed on August 11th of that year.

With the theater temporarily closed due to COVID and without a job, as you can imagine, Jodi found it impossible to find anyone to rent to her. But being a fighter as Jodi has said she had to be as a foster child, she was able to negotiate with Garden Lakes Realty to find a rental if she paid a full year in advance ($11,000) and double the deposit. Kendall’s first cousins (Donna Howell, Royce Morris, and Chuck Wynn) were able to provide about $8,000 of that with Jodi making up the balance on her own from her savings. She and her daughter moved into their new apartment November 1st, 2020.

At Thanksgiving of that same year, she received the bad news that the theater was permanently closing and that her job of 14 years would not be coming back. That really broke Jodi’s spirit. While she went out for interviews, no one would hire her due to her now physical limitations from years of lifting that exacerbated her spinal injuries; she can’t climb stairs, walk office to office, bend, twist, vacuum, travel, etc.

Limited assistance for her autistic daughter, but her own medical issues persist

In February of 2021, her doctor diagnosed her with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He said she had been on autopilot for so long that her mind and body couldn’t take anymore and was shutting down. Her unemployment ran out in March 2021. After 2 years and 8 months, Jodi’s autistic daughter was finally granted a monthly SSI check of less than a thousand dollars (following 20 years of attempts). The back pay from the SSI has allowed them to continue to live with the rent paid through February 2023. An additional donation has the rent paid through the month of April.

Jodi applied for her own disability last March of 2022 based on an MRI indicating degenerative disc disease, 3 herniated disks, and 1 bulging disk. It’s been a year and she has heard nothing. She’s been advised by counsel that she can’t pursue this legally unless and until she is declined. Over 60% of Georgia’s applications are initially declined.

Run out of options and run out of time

She has contacted every agency in Rome and Floyd county. I have reviewed the case with a couple of folks in Rome that are involved in charity work in Rome. Based on their review of what bases Jodi has covered, they concur she has exhausted all of the institution and agency options.

Due to her daughter’s disability, being a single mother, and a foster child herself, her social network within Rome has been tiny and she has no blood family she has ever been close to for support. Her world got a little smaller when her best friend Mary Bratcher Hulsey passed away from COVID in February 2022.

The money is gone. After eviction, the next step is homelessness which would be incredibly hard on Jodi but devastating to her autistic daughter.

Please help lift her and bear her burden

During this season of Lent where we bring to mind Jesus’s suffering and sacrifices for us, please consider helping this woman who has carried her own burden from her childhood of foster care as well as the physical sacrifices she has made with her own body in service of others. Given all she has been through, she has been incredibly resilient throughout her life. But she needs our help now in bearing her cross a little further down the road.

Please help however you can. Let your friends and family know their help is needed and would be appreciated as well. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Bob H. Howell