Help Chris find security after suffering a stroke

Hi, my name is Chris Percival and I need your help - I find myself between a rock and a hard place.

I am 66 years old, I suffered a stroke on December 29th last year. I like to think of myself as a ‘stroke survivor’ rather than a stroke victim – because, although I have some severe deficits after the stroke, I’m still here!

It’s left me with a limp, and I drag my right leg when walking, I have no use of my right hand or arm, I have slightly slurred speech still, I’m also struggling with post stroke fatigue. Over the last couple of months, I’ve also developed complex regional pain syndrome in my right shoulder/arm/hand, which basically means I’m in pain all the time and short periods of extreme pain. I need help dressing, so Anne helps putting on most of my clothes, wearing pants with a zipper has some extra challenges, well I will leave that up to your imagination of what happens when I need the bathroom when we’re out. I can walk and get around our house, but I’m not able to walk very far, so I have a wheelchair if we go out. I can’t leave the house by myself as I can no longer drive, and public transport is too far away.

I’ve lost my job and small business because of the stroke.

Asking people for money is a very difficult thing for me – but I feel backed into a corner and cannot see a way out.

Life circumstances has left me now with no savings, no job, no superannuation, no home to live in. You might wonder how a 66-year-old man would be in this position.

My story began several years ago – I was running a successful business and lived in a nice house in the suburbs of Perth, West Australia.

The timing of the global financial crisis in 2008 caused my business to fail, to ensure all our debt was paid, we had to sell our family home.

We found a home to rent and got on with life, go forward 10 years, I’m finally able to investigate purchasing another house for myself and my wife. However, our daughter was going through an ugly separation after being a victim of DV. She was living in a different state to us in Australia, had a young daughter and a new baby on the way. She was struggling mentally, emotionally and financially and she really needed to be with family. We gave what money we had saved for a house to help with legal fees. It cost a fortune, but she is now healthy and happy, living in Perth with her two beautiful babies. We do not regret for one second, spending our money to help with her relocation.

Go forward to 2023, we’re finally on track again to purchase a house, we found a builder, found a block of land, put a deposit down and were working on finalising finance. I was so excited to finally be able to have a home of our own again with my wife, that would allow us to see out our senior years in comfort knowing we had a secure place to live.

Except life dealt another blow, I suffered a stroke on 29th December 2023. Up until that point I was working full time as a bus driver and had spent the previous three years creating a little business called ABR Model Works. It had been three years hard work – working a full-time job and establishing a business, but the business was finally taking off and things were looking promising.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot to be thankful for – I mean I wake up every morning, so that’s always a good start – haha.

So, I lost my bus driving job in January 2024 – in fact I’m not allowed to drive anything at the moment. If I’m able to get enough co-ordination back in my legs and cognitive thinking, then I can apply for a special driver’s licence – of course we’ll need to modify the car for a one-armed person but that’s just a dream at the moment. It’s been seven months since my stroke so we’re not holding out much hope for any further improvement.

I’m not able to return to paid employment.

The loss of income that happened suddenly was a huge blow to my wife and I.

I’ve had to sell my little business – ABR Model Works – as with my disabilities I’m unable to manufacture the products now. As it was only in its infancy, the business has been sold for a very small sum of money and is in fact just enough to cover the overdraft we had to get the business going – but at least the sale is getting rid of the debt.

My wife and I now have very little – no home of our own, no savings and only about $25k in superannuation.

My wife has now been granted a Carer Payment from Centrelink as she must spend a good deal of her time helping me with day-to-day tasks. I have just (in the last 2 weeks) been granted a Disability Payment from Centrelink.

Sadly, because I was 65 when I had the stroke, we do not qualify for any assistance under the NDIS.

I am now 66 and my wife is 60. My wife works part time but is not able to work full time due to the help I need each day.

When I met my wife, almost 41 years ago, I promised her many things, one of those things was our own home. I feel I have failed her in a way, I want, more than anything to make sure she has somewhere to live for the rest of our years. We are currently renting with our daughters, they are both building small homes of their own and we’re so excited for them, but they can’t afford to build a home for themselves, their children and us. So, once their homes are ready to move into (within the year) we will be on our own. With rents being what they are, I’m worried we won’t be able to afford anything.

I’m terrified that at some point in the very near future we will become a homeless statistic.

Private rentals are so expensive now. We did enquire about government housing – but my wife working 2 days a week means we earn too much to be considered.

My wife is willing to work another 10 to 15 years. We’ve found a way of getting a home loan through a government funded, shared equity, disability loan. The only problem is, time is against us (because of our age), we can only borrow money until I am 75 – which is 9 years. And the amount of money we can borrow isn’t enough to purchase a house ourselves.

I know we have a lot to be thankful for and I know there are people worse off than ourselves, but here I am, on bended knee, asking if any of you can help us out. If you can spare any money, any amount, I want to see if I can afford to give my wife the security of having her own home to live out her retirement.

I am embarrassed to find myself in the situation and I’m not one for asking for a handout, but I’m out of ideas.

With crowd funding, people put in what they can afford - $1, $5, $10… and of course there are those able to put in more generous amounts.

If we’re lucky enough to get into a home of our own – with help from generous and kind people out there – I’m happy to write in my will (for anyone able to donate $500 or more), that whatever percentage of our home that equates to, then, on the sale of our home after our death that percentage goes back to you.

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you, firstly for reading my story this far and also for any generous donations that are made.

Don’t feel bad if you can’t help, life is tough for so many at the moment, but if you can share my story so maybe someone else can help, I’d be forever grateful.

With love

Chris Percival

0413 999 915