If you’ve ever been in the hospital, you know how important it is to have someone there to pick you up and take you home. But what if you didn’t have a home to go to? And there was no one to take you there?
For people experiencing homelessness, when they are released from the hospital, they’re often released back to the street. And, without a way to get to follow-up appointments or into a place where they can rest and recuperate, their health often deteriorates again.
That is why Vivienne Gellert is launching a new transportation service for the homeless this week. It’s called Elaine and it will provide transportation for people experiencing homelessness between hospitals, doctors appointments and the human service organizations they depend upon.
Gellert realized the need for a service like this when she was working as a scribe in two inner-city hospitals here, and decided to forgo medical school to make it a reality.
The service launched on Monday and The Show spoke with her more about it.
