After Sandy, 77, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she retired and began looking for an affordable place to live. She has now been living at Mercy Housing Lakefront’s Countryside Senior Apartments for almost 13 years.

With expenses going up in recent years, she appreciates the onsite food and basic needs pantry at the building, which is supported with funding from Community Memorial Foundation and Naffah Family Charitable Foundation. She has also enjoyed the fresh produce pop-up events: “It’s very nice, and there’s just some people who, they can’t get out. That was me for a while because I’ve had to have a couple of surgeries, so it was very helpful for me.”

In dealing with her health challenges and changes in her benefits, the onsite resident services is especially helpful. “Jason [resident services coordinator] has just been really great at helping us when we need help,” she explains. “Between all this cybercrime to all the new laws and things like that, especially Medicare and all that, it’s so different and changes so much. It’s really, really hard, you know, to stay on top of it.”

At Mercy Housing Lakefront, older adults like Sandy don’t have to navigate complex health care systems and secure critical resources alone. Thanks to our many local partners and onsite resident services staff, residents like Sandy receive support in maintaining healthy, active, and social lives.