VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Jay Height:
Hi, I’m Jay Height, and we just celebrated Easter. And I want to talk about the new life of spring, the hope of Easter that we’ve celebrated is true for our neighbors. And you’re going to hear today about a partnership we have with IMPD and IEMS for the city, working with us to help bring that new life to a lady named Lericona.

Adam Perkins:
Officer Adam Perkins, 17 year veteran of IMPD and I’m the Community Officer for the Shalom project.

Shane Hardwick:
My name is Shane Hardwick. I’m a community paramedic with Indianapolis CMS and a paramedic for 25 years.

Adam Perkins:
We met Lericona on a typical 911 call for trouble breathing. She has had a longterm lung issue, COPD. She was just needing some help on the medical side of things. But, we were able to begin a relationship with someone who didn’t really have anybody checking in on her, didn’t really have anybody concerned with her well-being, her quality of life.

Shane Hardwick:
A couple of months back, she calls us and says the place that I’ve lived for nearly 10 years has just been put on the market and sold and we’ve been given a month to vacate the premises and she really had no good options moving forward. She didn’t really have anybody to kind of help come alongside her.

Adam Perkins:
She rents a room, been in that room for the last 10 years or so, and she shares it with four or five other adults. The conditions that she was living in is not somewhere that I would want someone that I care about to be living long-term and Lericona is someone we care about. So, this has presented an opportunity, not only to find her stable housing, but find her better housing and a better overall quality of life.

Shane Hardwick:
We were able to bring in our social workers from Shepherd to start making phone calls and start doing some research on a good place for her that’s going to fit in her budget. Being a part of her moving day was really special for us. We were able to provide a box truck to move her. So, Officer Perkins and myself spent the afternoon moving her into her new apartment.

Adam Perkins:
Her surroundings are cleaner and brighter and the air is better. And she is given an opportunity to do some socialization that she just was not getting in her former living environment.

Shane Hardwick:
It ties back into healthy people create healthy neighborhoods. She’s had no calls to 911 and no ER visits in the last several years. Through that time, we’ve been able to kind of keep a relationship with her. She knows she can call us.

Adam Perkins:
I think Lericona, not only realizes that we’re advocates for her, but I think she recognizes us as her family. She expresses that when we’re around her and I think we would feel the same. We truly have a deep appreciation and love for the folks that we’re engaged with and would like nothing but the best for them.

Jay Height:
This is just one story of many that we are making possible with your help on the road to recovery.