City of Philadelphia
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After months of living on the streets, Alexis DiBella felt she had finally turned a corner at the end of last year.
The 31-year-old had just gotten a bed in a women’s shelter. Excited to “to dig into life again” after a frigid winter, she brushed off some lingering pain in her feet.
Over a few days, they grew red and swollen. One night, still in her first week at the shelter, DiBella took off her socks and shoes and discovered that both feet had turned black.
She had developed frostbite while living outside.
Doctors eventually amputated one of her feet. After a month in the hospital, DiBella was ready to be discharged — but the shelter where she’d hoped to start a new life could not accommodate her disability.
“I didn’t know where I was going,” DiBella said.
That’s when a social worker recommended she move to a medical respite in West Philadelphia run by the Public Health Management Corporation, a healthcare organization that runs several federally qualified health centers and health programs for homeless Philadelphians.