Mainstream Living

Stories of Impact

Martez has received services from Mainstream Living for 20 years. For the past several years, he has lived at a four-bed location with a couple of other men. Recently one of his roommates started to experience more challenges and became more and more difficult to live with. The team tried lots of ways to help his roommate, but nothing worked. Martez was unhappy and appeared frightened of his roommate at times. After repeated attempts to salvage this situation, the roommate moved out and we closed the site. Martez moved into another location with us and loves it. He is enjoying his new roommates and their families.

Jason is one of our members who has brittle diabetes. He lives at Del Matro and will be attending a week long residential camp from 7/29- 8/3 at Easter Seals Camp Sunnyside. This has been something that Jason has been eager to do since moving to Des Moines three years ago. However, his parents were worried about him attending camp due to his diabetes and limited communication skills. Jason's team had several conversations and have agreed to let him go knowing that there is a nurse on staff at the camp at all times. Jason jumps for joy when camp is mentioned and is ecstatic for this opportunity.

Additionally, Jason has an assessment for a half-day, day program with REM Iowa. This has also been a long term dream and Jason has had to overcome many obstacles to get this to happen. He will hopefully be starting day program services with them in August. 

Baker House - On July 1st, our medically fragile home on East Douglas flooded due to the torrential rain earlier in the day. The overnight staff, the Assistant Team Leader and parents worked together to make sure that everyone was safely evacuated. Des Moines Fire and Rescue and Police Department came to our aid and helped take people out of the house via boat. The Program Coordinator from the site and another Team Leader coordinated transportation for the members to alternative safe locations for the remainder of the night. Since then, there have been multiple staff who have worked hard to continue to provide quality care for our members, deal with the cleaning and repairs at the site, ensure funding for the members, handle the insurance claims, address member finances and benefits, etc. It is amazing when everyone comes together to deal with a crisis with such support and fortitude. Thanks to all!
 

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