Sylvestre Primous, a 71-year-old U.S. Army veteran, stopped seeing doctors for months even though his heart was failing, walking was painful and his anxiety was off the charts.

Getting to a medical appointment seemed too difficult while he was living at a Phoenix homeless shelter and didn’t have a car.

Primous had been unable to find an apartment he could afford after a landlord suddenly sold the trailer he rented. Continuing the housing search was his main focus, not his health.

“I’m sick because I’m homeless. The stress of being homeless, the stress of not having nowhere, not having my place,” said Primous, a Purple Heart recipient who was disabled by shrapnel in Vietnam. “This is six months of me deteriorating.”

Then Primous learned about Elaine, a new nonprofit that picks up homeless people from hospitals, drives them from shelters to doctor visits and helps them navigate housing and health care.

Named after Elaine Herzberg, the homeless woman killed in Tempe by a self-driving Uber, and funded by her family, the organization seeks to keep people healthy so they won’t need to make expensive emergency-room visits and ultimately can get off the street.

Michelle Detrick, Elaine’s transportation director and a fellow military veteran, said she and Primous have formed a bond.

She has fought to straighten out his VA benefits and encouraged him to stay on track with his medications.

“At 71 years old, a veteran of the United States military, a Purple Heart recipient, nobody (like that) should be on the street,” Detrick said. Now she tells him, “Come on, let’s get back on it. Let’s get you healthy.”

Primous, a saxophonist, recently brought his service-dog Cheech on a ride to the VA medical center.

“Elaine picked me up when I was at the end of my rope,” he said. “I see a much better future now. My housing is coming up. Things are moving for me. I’m more relaxed and going to get my health checked out. If it wasn’t for them, none of this would probably have happened.”

Sick and homeless

Medical providers and social-service agencies are increasingly viewing their missions as intertwined: When you’re homeless, it’s difficult to stay healthy. When you’re sick, it’s hard to get back on your feet financially.

The realization comes as an increasing number of people in metro Phoenix are homeless, and as rents and evictions rise. A national report found Arizona is third-worst in the nation for affordable housing, with just 25 lower-cost rental units available for every 100 extremely low-income households. 

Gaps in the health care system, combined with more people becoming homeless in Maricopa County, have led to cases of “patient dumping,” when a hospital or nursing facility puts a sick or injured patient back on the street.

Last year, a mentally impaired man was found at a bus stop with an amputated foot after being treated by Abrazo Central hospital and Camelback Post-Acute Care and Rehabilitation. An infection required a second amputation to his knee.

In January, a woman recovering from a severe lung infection begged doctors and nurses at Maricopa Medical Center to help her find housing before she was discharged. Her pleas went largely ignored, and she spent two nights at a bus stop in near-freezing weather.

Programs like Elaine help ensure patients without homes are cared for once they are discharged, said St. Joseph’s Hospital Community Health Director Marisue Garganta.

The hospital gave $50,000 to Elaine this year to work with its homeless patients.

“If we were really ill, and somebody we cared about picked us up (from the hospital) and took us home — or if that friend called us and said … ‘Can I pick up those meds for you?’ — when you’re homeless, you don’t have that,” Garganta said. “And now with Elaine they have someone like that, almost like a friend or a neighbor who cares about you. … (Homeless people are) still our neighbors. But they don’t have a front door we can knock on to say, ‘How are you doing?’ “

ASU student created Elaine

Elaine was created by a pre-med student who saw homeless people return to the emergency room where she worked sicker than they left.

One homeless man received stitches on his hand only to come back weeks later with an infection so bad he was septic, said 23-year-old Vivienne Gellert.

“His hand was the size of a balloon,” said Gellert, who grew up in the Valley. “It was horrific.”

If Elaine had existed, the organization could have picked up the man after the stitches, taken him to a shelter, met him every day to take antibiotics and driven him back to remove the stitches, she said.

“It’s antibiotics and stitch removal — so straight-forward,” Gellert said. But without Elaine to facilitate, “that’s how you end up with amputated limbs.”

Gellert already had organized her Arizona State University classmates to give thousands of backpacks filled with food, socks and hygiene supplies to people on the street by the time she realized the need for Elaine.

Gellert delayed medical school last year and persuaded Valley Toyota Dealers Association to provide three vehicles, donors to give thousands of dollars and Circle the City to provide office space at the downtown Phoenix Homeless Services Campus.

As Elaine grows, Gellert hopes to develop more relationships with hospitals to coordinate smoother discharges of homeless people.

“These are human beings. No one should have to beg for their health. That’s a basic human need,” Gellert said. “When you really prioritize the (patient), the right decisions are made.”

In just a few months, Elaine has worked with more than a dozen patients and helped at least one get into housing.

Primous recently moved into a new place. Detrick, the driver, spent a weekend getting him settled.

HonorHealth offers help to homeless

Circle the City, which provides primary care and recovery beds for the homeless, is another group working with Valley hospitals to help homeless patients.

HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center recently opened its parking lot to a Circle the City mobile clinic and hired a care manager for its emergency room to plan safe discharges for homeless people.

“If we’re going to revitalize the community and continue to be a good neighbor, we’ve got to address the homelessness issue,” HonorHealth Community Affairs Vice President Michelle Pabis said. “It’s meeting the patients’ needs, but it’s also being committed to our neighborhood.”

In the first week, the mobile clinic was open, nurse Bobby Rhudy treated a young woman who was living in a friend’s yard, he said. 

She was recovering from heart and gallbladder surgery and had a drain hanging out of her abdomen.

Rhudy set up a hospital visit to remove the tube and connected her with services for housing and drug rehabilitation, he said.

“She really had no idea where to turn,” Rhudy said. “If her medical needs are not addressed, she will not be around anymore.”

‘A lasting legacy’

Giving people like Primous a second chance is what Elaine Herzberg’s family hoped its support of the organization would do.

“The men and women of her family cared deeply for Elaine and wanted to honor her memory,” family attorney Shannon Clark said. “Through this program, Elaine will have a lasting legacy.”

When Primous learned “the price that was paid” to start the nonprofit, he said he was amazed.

“She gave her life,” Primous said. “Look at all of us now that are going to be able to be helped by it.”

How to help

• To learn more or donate to Elaine, a nonprofit that provides transportation and health-navigation to people experiencing homelessness, go to elaineaz.org.
• To donate to or volunteer at Circle the City, which provides medical care to homeless patients after a hospital stay, go to circlethecity.org or call 623-900-7671.
• Other ways to help the homeless are at azhousingcoalition.org/needhelp

Circle the City also receives support from Season for Sharing, sponsored by The Arizona Republic. 

Consumer reporter Rebekah L. Sanders investigates issues of fraud and abuse involving businesses, health-care entities and government agencies. Contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @RebekahLSanders. 

Support local journalism.Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/04/10/family-of-woman-killed-by-uber-vehicle-asu-student-creates-charity-aid-homeless-housing-healthcare/3096731002/