Keep Flexer Family Together & Hilary Out Of A Nursing Home

Help keep the Flexers together and keep Hilary out of the nursing home.

Introductions:

The Flexers are a close-knit, artistic and creative family of five who have overcome many challenges in the past 16 years. Each member of the family has different disabilities, and they have learned to turn this into a unique home culture. The Flexers are Jewish and participate in the local synagogue, with one child going to Hebrew School and David teaching there. The two parents Hilary and David, as well as two of their three children are queer. Hilary, a wheelchair user, is a published writer and artist who has been dealing with increasing levels of disability and chronic illness for the past sixteen years, and David, a writer, musician, and educator, has found meaningful work teaching and working with special needs students in between care-taking for family members. Following a long period of illness and confinement, Hilary has recently been approved for in-home care from the Tri-County Office on Aging, which would give David more time to devote to work and help Hilary to fully enjoy their family with increased access to the outside world.

The Emergency: The Flexers are now at a high risk of being separated and unhoused.

The Flexers reside in their current first floor apartment as a reasonable accommodation that was granted in May of 2023, due to a settlement agreement with their apartment's owner, brokered by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. The MDCR Settlement Agreement did another thing: it set standards for performing maintenance and responding to reasonable accommodations within a 30 day time frame.

However, things with the landlord have been strained. In mid-May, after a troubling and unusually inaccessible recertification process, the Flexers unexpectedly received a Notice to Quit, telling them that they had to be out of their apartment in 30 days, even though they never received any lease violations or warnings. The Notice to Quit did not provide any concrete instances of lease violation, but instead, asserted that the potential mold growths in the apartment that the Flexer’s had been reporting to management since the unit transfer were the family’s fault, even though no mess or housekeeping issues were ever documented in the four inspections completed in the past year.

What’s needed:

Now, the Flexers have to be out by June 15th, or face eviction court proceedings, but they have no funds for a new security deposit, first month’s rent on a second home, or to pay movers. Even if they are able to get out in time, there are likely to still be court proceedings with the landlord, and the Flexers have been at a severe disadvantage without legal representation. The Flexers have been plugged in to all of the appropriate venues of legal and housing aid advice and are working with Hilary's social workers at TCOA, but unfortunately, there is no free legal aid in Michigan for Civil Rights cases, which will have to continue after relocation.

Once moved, Hilary can finally begin receiving much-needed in-home care through the Tri-County Center of Aging. Unfortunately, sending Hilary to a nursing home is the highly undesirable backup option to homelessness (which would be deadly for them). In that scenario , the Flexer family would be broken up, and this would devastate the children who also have separation anxiety and are very close with their mother.

Hilary has also suffered from heart problems due to this stress from the landlord, and is seeing a cardiologist for a possible heart attack. The first, most important goal is to get Hilary and the family into safe and secure housing. Several first floor apartments and mobile homes have already been lined up.

The cost break down for the move is as follows:

First month’s rent: $1,300

Security deposit: $1,300

Movers (packing + moving) $1,500

total= $4,100

Secondly, as we are forced to go to court for the civil rights case, there are legal costs that need covered, and those are as follows:

Retainer fee to review documentation: $5,000. Once the review is complete, the lawyer will decide which direction to go, which will require an additional retainer.

The next retainer is likely to be at least an additional $5,000, but this won’t be known until the review is complete, making $10,000 likely needed for retainer fees.

The total we need for this fundraiser to cover the move plus legal fees is $14,100.

The Flexer family thanks you for your support during this unprecedentedly difficult chapter.