Lawrence’s Story: From Four Years in a Nursing Facility to His Own Apartment
Some people end up in a nursing facility because of a single bad day.
A fall. A stroke. A surgery that doesn’t go the way it was supposed to. The plan was always to recover and go home. But weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. And eventually, the nursing facility stopped feeling like a stopover and started feeling like the end of the line.
Lawrence knows that feeling. He lived it for over four years.
This is his story. In his words, with some of ours along the way, about what it took to get out of a Westland nursing facility, back into his own apartment, and into a new chapter of life.
If you’re reading this from inside a nursing facility, or you have a loved one who is, we hope his story tells you something important:
You’re not stuck.
Before: Four to Five Years in a Nursing Facility
Lawrence hadn’t planned on living in a nursing facility. He hadn’t planned on any of what happened, really.
In 2018, he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. What followed was the kind of medical crisis that takes over your whole life: chemotherapy. Radiation. Surgery. A long hospitalization. He lost about 100 pounds. The radiation and chemotherapy caused nerve damage. His doctor told him his nerves had been shot.
By the time the most intense part of the treatment was behind him, Lawrence had a new reality to adjust to. He uses a wheelchair now. He can stand and take a few steps to help strengthen his legs, but he can’t walk far. He needed somewhere safe to live where the day-to-day was manageable.
That place ended up being a nursing facility in Westland. And then he stayed there. For four to five years.
That’s the part of this story that we want to sit with for a minute, because it’s a part most families don’t see coming.
Nursing facilities can be the right answer in the moment. They’re built for people who need round-the-clock care, who can’t safely live alone, who need help with the basics of daily life while they’re recovering or while their condition is unpredictable.
But sometimes, maybe more often than you’d think, the moment passes. The person stabilizes. The acute crisis ends. And somehow nobody runs the math again to ask: does this person still need to be here?
In Lawrence’s case, the answer was no. He didn’t need to be there anymore. He just didn’t know there was another option.
The Friend Who Knew
Most of the stories we hear at The Information Center start the same way: someone outside the situation could see what the person in the middle of it couldn’t.
For Lawrence, that someone was his friend Rufus.
Rufus knew about The Information Center’s Community Transition Services Program. He told Lawrence about it. And Lawrence made a phone call.
That’s how it usually goes. Not a website search. Not a brochure left on a tray. A friend, a sibling, a hospital social worker, a fellow resident at the facility, someone who knows about the program and says the words out loud.
If you’re reading this and you know someone in a nursing facility who you think might want more than they currently have, that someone might be you. Tell them about CTS. Tell them about The Information Center. Tell them about Lawrence.
This is one of the reasons we’d rather not be Downriver’s best-kept secret. Because every person who knows about CTS becomes someone who can tell another Lawrence.
Meeting Paris
Lawrence called The Information Center and was connected with Paris, the Transition Navigator for the CTS program.
Paris’s job is to figure out whether someone in a nursing facility is a fit for CTS, and if they are, to coordinate the whole transition. Housing. Furniture. Groceries. Documents. Transportation. All the pieces that have to come together for someone to actually leave a facility and move into a home.
Here’s how Lawrence describes the conversation:
“When Paris informed me that I could leave the nursing facility and move into my own apartment, I was thrilled and said, ‘Let’s do this!’”
— Lawrence
Let’s do this.
That’s what changes. Not a slow climb back to maybe-someday. A clear yes. A path forward. Someone telling you it’s actually possible, and then walking with you while it happens.
What CTS Actually Did for Lawrence
This is where the program goes from idea to reality. Because saying “we’ll help you transition” and actually doing it are two very different things, and CTS does the second one.
Here’s what Lawrence got, in his own words:
“The Information Center brought me from darkness into the light. Paris found my new apartment, and through the Community Transition Services Program, The Information Center furnished it. They provided me with a medical bed, a microwave, an air fryer, a TV, two end tables, and then filled my refrigerator and pantry with food. They brought me all the supplies I needed to start my life over again.”
— Lawrence
Read that list one more time. A medical bed. A microwave. An air fryer. A TV. End tables. A stocked refrigerator. A full pantry.
This is what nobody tells you about leaving a nursing facility: when you’ve been somewhere for years, you have nothing. Not a coffee mug. Not a fork. Not a bed. The facility had everything you needed because the facility owned everything. When you leave, you walk out with what fits in a small bag, and that’s it.
For most people, that’s where the dream of “going home” dies. Because how do you furnish an apartment from scratch when you’ve been in a nursing facility for four years?
That’s what CTS exists for. To answer that question with a real answer.
5 Things CTS Helps With
Lawrence’s story shows what CTS does in practice. Here are the five core things the program helps with for anyone transitioning out of a nursing facility:
1. IDs and Documents
Most people who’ve lived in a nursing facility for a long time have lost track of basic documents, a driver’s license, state ID, Medicaid card, Social Security card, birth certificate. You can’t rent an apartment without these. CTS helps gather and replace what’s needed.
2. Furnishing Your Space
Beds, dressers, end tables, kitchen appliances, lamps, TVs, dishes. The program furnishes the apartment so that move-in day means walking into a real, working home, not an empty box. Lawrence got a medical bed, a microwave, an air fryer, a TV, and end tables, all through CTS.
3. Groceries to Start
Day one in a new apartment means breakfast, lunch, and dinner. CTS stocks the refrigerator and pantry with food so the transition doesn’t fall apart over a missed meal. “They brought me all the supplies I needed to start my life over again,” Lawrence said. That’s not a metaphor, it’s a literal description of what happened.
4. Transportation
CTS helps with the physical move itself, getting the person from the facility to the new apartment safely. For people in wheelchairs or with mobility limitations, this isn’t a small detail, it’s the whole logistics of the day.
5. Ongoing Support
CTS isn’t a one-day handoff. The program connects the person to ongoing services that help them stay in the community, home health aides, the MI Choice Medicaid Waiver if eligible, PACE, Home Help, Home Health Care, Habilitation Supports Waiver and Dual Insurance Plans. About half of CTS clients move into MI Choice for long-term care coordination once they’re settled.
And the relationships don’t end. Lawrence still talks to Paris.
“I talk to Paris regularly, and every time I do, I thank her for her support. I truly appreciate the work that everyone at The Information Center is doing.”
— Lawrence
What Lawrence Wants You to Know
When we asked Lawrence what he’d say to someone in a nursing facility who’s wondering if there’s another option, here’s how he put it:
“They have changed my life!”
— Lawrence
Four words. And every one of them earned.
From four to five years in a Westland nursing facility, to his own apartment, his own bed, his own kitchen, his own front door. From watching life happen to living it again.
That’s what CTS can do. Not for everyone. Not in every situation. But for a lot more people than realize it’s an option.
Could CTS Be Right for You or Someone You Love?
If any of this story sounds like your situation, yours or a loved one’s, here are the basics of how to find out:
• Who CTS is for: Adults currently living in a nursing facility who want to move into community-based living (a home, apartment, assisted living facility, or adult foster care) in Wayne County. You can be moving from outside of Wayne County as long as you are moving into Wayne County.
• What’s needed: Medicaid eligibility (or pending eligibility), a willingness to move back to the community, and a connection with The Information Center to start the assessment.
• How to start: Call 734-282-7171 and ask about Community Transition Services. Or have a hospital social worker, discharge planner, family member, or friend make the first call on someone’s behalf.
If you’re a discharge planner, social worker, or care coordinator at a hospital, rehab center, or nursing facility, we work directly with referral partners. The CTS process can start while your patient is still in your care, so there’s no gap between facility and community.
Be the Friend Who Knows
Lawrence got his life back because his friend Rufus told him about a program.
Think about that for a second. Years of being “stuck” ended by a friend saying, “Hey, have you heard about this?”
If you read this blog and thought of someone, this is your invitation to be Rufus. Send them the link. Make the phone call on their behalf. Tell their family. Mention it to the social worker at the facility. You don’t have to have all the answers, you just have to be the person who passes along the lifeline.
Because every person in a nursing facility who wants to come home deserves their own “let’s do this” moment.