The Jensen family have less than three months to find a wheelchair-friendly home in Northern Tasmania before their lease ends.
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Bridport resident Kerry Jensen was diagnosed with rare autoimmune disease Dermatomyositis in 2013, which causes muscles to waste away and has forced her into a wheelchair.
The family-of-five discovered they needed to move out of their current rental property by September.
Trying to find a suitable rental property became a nightmare, so they set up a GoFundMe page to fundraise for a house deposit.
It would mean they could add hand rails, ramps, a walk-in shower and other necessities, Mrs Jensen said.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do if we can’t find somewhere.”
Mrs Jensen said she was not sure what they were going to do if they could not find a suitable place to live.
They have raised about $500.
The Jensen family were in the process of trying to access her husband’s superannuation early so they could get a house deposit together.
“We just have to wait for it to happen, there’s a lot of red tape,” Mrs Jensen said.
She hoped sharing her story about life with Dermatomyositis would raise awareness of the disease and of the stigma around people in wheelchairs.
“Wheels don’t make me any less of a person.”
Tess Brunton
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
I recently returned from across the ditch where I worked at New Zealand Fairfax paper The Timaru Herald and developed a love of mountains. Originally I'm a mainlander from an area known for cheese, the Bega Valley, who also dabbled in radio at ABC RCAFF before finding a place in newspapers. I can often be found hiking, caving or climbing when I'm not cursing at my work computer or technology in general.
