Our Results
HOW WE’VE TOUCHED LIVES
Make a Donation
Join Our Effort
A Sampling of What We’ve Done
Obtained, at no cost and as scheduled the following day, medically-urgent oral surgery required by leukemia patient to avoid a life threatening infection related to her cancer treatment. The oral surgeon’s office staff was about to cancel the surgery appointment because our client had been unable to come up with full pre-payment of the ~$5000 surgical fee. Insurance had refused coverage because the surgery, they claimed, was dental and thus unrelated to the client’s physical condition.
Helped tenants from a primarily senior citizen apartment complex to obtain from the property’s management and owner desperately needed maintenance services and safety improvements, including improved parking lot lighting requested by female tenants for their safety.
Obtained new school clothing for five children being raised by their grandmother who was also taking care of her disabled husband on low income.
Obtained two donated computers with all needed programs installed for a single mother to begin a home-based bookkeeping business as a source of income and for her disabled daughter with kidney disease that required her to be home-schooled through use of the computer because of her frequent need for treatment at a distant location.
Obtained immediate free computer repair and operating system upgrade for elderly woman living alone who had sustained two strokes making speech difficult for her and making her computer, which was not operating when she contacted Help Now!, her main means of communication with the outside world.
Within 2 hours of being contacted, persuaded a local company, which had sold a defective lift chair to a disabled woman, to provide a better and non-defective replacement unit. The woman had been trying to get the company to replace her chair for nearly two months prior to contacting Help Now!
Helped a disabled local woman in cancer chemotherapy recover her car from a Portland storage lot where it had been accruing daily charges after having been stolen in Medford a week earlier and recovered by the Portland police—within 24 hours of being contacted, we found a free ride for the woman to Portland the following day, negotiated a significant reduction in the storage charges, and assisted her finding a way to raise the necessary funds.
Helped an 85 year old senior avoid significant surrender charges as she cashed out two illiquid annuity policies, inappropriately sold her over a two year period, so that she could afford the higher level of care that her deteriorating physical condition required.
Obtained immediate eradication of black mold infestation in the apartment of 19 year old college student who had been given the runaround by her property management company for over two months prior to contacting Help Now!
Persuaded federal housing agency to allow low income disabled woman to retain her Section 8 federal housing subsidy where she had sustained a traumatic brain-injury at age 5 and was experiencing severe physical problems causing her to miss a paperwork submission deadline.
Obtained, within 24 hours of being contacted, landlord’s agreement to install bathroom grab bars for disabled vet in wheelchair—something the vet had been asking for since taking occupancy of the apartment over one month earlier.
Obtained fabricated countertops, also installed free of charge, for a domestic violence victim who, with a state domestic violence grant, had moved hurriedly into a trailer lacking countertops and was having to prepare meals for her children on a piece of plywood.
Persuaded a local telephone company to zero out a $285 bill of a mentally ill woman for installation and service she never received—the company had persistently billed her over a 4 month period prior to our resolving the issue within 24 hours of being contacted.
Persuaded the owner of mobile home park primarily for seniors to replace his on-site manager where the manager had shown favoritism and arbitrariness in enforcing park rules depending on his relationship with each resident.
Obtained both insurance disability payments and workman’s compensation for a long-haul truck driver after initial denials by both insurance companies where the diabetic truck driver’s employer had refused to allow him time off for early treatment of an infected foot blister which infection, because time off for earlier treatment had been denied, ultimately led to amputation of his leg.
Within 2 hours of our receiving her call for assistance, one of our community partners in the trades had completed repairs on the leaking roof of a disabled senior’s trailer during a January rainstorm.
A domestic violence victim for whom we obtained a debit card/gas voucher within 24 hrs. so that she and her daughter could flee her abuser and drive to Minnesota to live with a family member there.
Assisted disabled homeless woman living on the streets with her disabled son in finding an apartment that would accept her, obtained full furnishings for that apartment, and assisted the woman in locating and negotiating the purchase of a car for her and her son utilizing crowd-funding non-profit Hand Up as the source of funds for the purchase.
Obtained materials and labor at no charge to build a ramp over the front steps of a low income disabled senior’s residence. She otherwise was facing being trapped in her residence following surgery because of her inability to navigate the steps without such a ramp.
Persuaded a Nevada credit union collections department to forgive a $10,000 charge on their credit card by a 77 year old widow who had been scammed into charging her entire life’s savings in return for a Utah “consulting” company’s “teaching” her how to set up an online business (eBay and Craigslist) to supplement her social security of $563/mo. The scamming company was out of business, with its two principals prosecuted and convicted, and the deadline for disputing the credit card charge had already passed when the widow contacted us.
Assisted a physically disabled woman by connecting her to pro bono legal counsel specializing in used car “lemon law” where she had purchased a two year old vehicle, still under manufacturer’s warranty, from a local dealership. The car had difficulty making it back to the woman’s home immediately after purchase, and the dealership had yet to repair it after more than a month but also refused to take it back.
Prevented mistaken termination of disability benefits by the Social Security Administration for a woman with thyroid cancer, seizures, developmental/learning disability, and migraine headaches, among her various physical and mental challenges. She was facing homelessness without our intervention.
Helped a physically disabled, middle-aged man obtain necessary in-home services and improved pain management to the point where he has been exploring employment options to get off government disability benefits.
Helped a new-to-the-area mentally ill man avoid running out of his supply of an essential psychotropic medicine by persuading a national pharmaceutical distributor to overnight the medicine, at no charge, to a local pharmacy—the medicine had never been prescribed locally and consequently was not stocked by local pharmacies.
Negotiated full refund of $1100+ checking account balance from large national bank for a disabled vet who was taken by paramedics to hospital ER and was in rehab facility following a heart attack when a homeless person broke into his apartment, stole his ATM card and PIN, and emptied his checking account. Bank had refused the vet’s requests for reimbursement over a 10 month period contending that the homeless person must have had his authorization to remove money because of PIN access. Upon our providing corporate headquarters of the bank proof that the homeless man was being criminally prosecuted for the incident, the vet obtained an immediate refund.
Obtained prompt insurance company approval for injection, as recommended by disabled client’s pain specialist doctor, to address her spinal disk problem where insurance company had refused her previous requests saying they had approved surgery but not an injection.
Obtained immediate mental health assistance and averted eviction for a disabled veteran with PTSD who was about to be evicted from his residence after threatening a Saudi family living near him following what he thought was a threatening voicemail message left by ISIS terrorists on his answering machine.
Persuaded an auto repair service to provide an unmarried working woman a replacement automobile fuel pump and labor to install at cost and take payments from her over time so that she could continue driving to her work location which was not serviced by public transportation.
Assisted a disabled military vet who had been living in her apartment for 5 years in having a $500 bill for bedbug extermination written off by the landlord after we presented evidence to the landlord making it clear that our client was not responsible for the infestation.
Connected an indigent and elderly man to one of our pro bono community legal partners to create a guardianship for his wife who had dementia, was wandering off, and had become increasingly hostile in the home environment.
Obtained from the merchants and finance companies involved over $250,000 in reimbursement for over 60 families living in various parts of the country but sharing the fact that they had been scammed into purchasing unneeded water filtration equipment based on false representations about their tap water’s quality made by the merchants’ salespeople.