Impact: You helped the Hatchetts and Larry Solomon find homes they love
Your support ensures residents in our independent living apartments get homes that come with all the amenities.
For Constance Hatchett, 61, moving to Nathalie Salmon House was “an upgrade.” She and her husband Curtis had been living in senior housing elsewhere in the city, but the building lacked facilities they appreciate now such as the exercise room, library and common room.
Originally from the West Side, Hatchett and her husband Curtis met and married after working together at Catholic Charities, then started a small business that provided security in the schools.
She also appreciates mix of residents in the building, and community activities that give everyone a chance to be together: “Everybody gets to know a little bit about everybody,” Hatchett says.
Their neighbor Larry Solomon, 77, is one of the newer residents at Nathalie Salmon House. A Chicago native, Solomon relocated to Florida, then moved around the South overseeing phone-book distribution for R.H. Donnelley. In 2017, he came to Chicago to be with his sister. When he went back to Nashville a few years later he found rising rents and gentrification had priced him out of the market.
He found his way back to Chicago, where transitional housing specialists at the Ark referred him to HOME’s Nathalie Salmon House independent living apartments. “I was troubled when I came back to Chicago,” Solomon says. “I didn’t know where I could live and I didn’t know what I could afford.”
Three months after moving in, Solomon says he loves the amenities in the community room and appreciates the staff and his neighbors. “This is a great location and it’s got a good group of people, a very diverse group, he says. “I ride the exercise bike, I do the treadmill and the weights,” he says. “I like the pool table. I do really well on it.”
This blog post is part of our Voices from H.O.M.E. impact series. The series focuses on the stories of those you have helped to live independently, how your support helped, and their memories of the place we call home, Chicago. Watch for the stories all month long as we prepare for Giving Tuesday 2019.
We hope you will like and share them! The idea behind #GivingTuesday is to kickoff the holiday-giving season, in the same way that Black Friday and Cyber Monday kickoff the holiday-shopping season. H.O.M.E. has also joined the #ILGive movement to celebrate Giving Tuesday.
Will you mark your calendar for December 3, 2019 to give to make a big impact for seniors in 2020? You can follow us on Facebook for updates, or sign up to be an #ILGive champion by fundraising for H.O.M.E.!
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