Spokane woman offers home to homeless family, ill child
Published 2:12 pm Thursday, August 4, 2011
SPOKANE — Offers of help have poured in after a Spokane newspaper profiled a struggling Tonasket couple and their children, including a 12-year-old girl battling leukemia.
The Spokesman-Review reported the offers include one from a Spokane woman who has offered her fully furnished four-bedroom home while Alicia Ponce-Myers recovers. The girl’s stepfather, Daniel Angell, says he was brought to tears by the outpouring.
A story in Wednesday’s Spokesman-Review outlined the girl’s medical struggles and her family’s attempts to deal with chronic homelessness and poverty. Alicia has spent the past month in a Spokane hospital undergoing treatment for a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. The newspaper says her cancer is in remission.
State social workers have insisted the family find stable housing to receive Alicia when she is discharged this week. Otherwise, Angell says there’s a possibility Alicia might be placed in foster care to help in her recovery. The family hopes to stay together.
