Helping others live again

At 18 years old, Lorenzo Brown felt like everyone had given up on his life. Paralyzed from the chest down after a gunshot wound, Brown had been placed in a nursing home to handle his daily care needs.

“I really thought that I was going to die there, that there was no option for me to get out,” Brown said. 

The Homewood resident is now a husband and father of two sons, with a third on the way, and he has a plan to help other Birmingham residents with disabilities find their own path to an independent, fulfilling life. In late February, he opened the Is-Able Center in West Homewood to provide support, education and employment resources for individuals with disabilities.

It was a long road for Brown to embrace the reality that he would never be able to walk again.

“It turned my world upside down,” Brown said. “I went into a really deep state of depression. Really, to be honest with you, I lost all hope. I wanted to die.”

A nursing instructor who brought occupational therapy students to the nursing home met Brown and invited him to speak to students and share his story. This opened doors for Brown, who was connected with the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services with the help of a student he spoke to. About two years after his initial injury, Brown’s faith helped him change his perspective: Learning to live is more important than learning to walk.

“I didn’t think I could live unless I walked. It changed my whole perspective. I started to get out of bed, started to engage and get out in life. And I learned to live again,” Brown said. “And I gotta be honest with you, it doesn’t even matter if I walk.”

Brown came to Birmingham to live in a transitional program that taught him independent living skills, and at 22 got his first apartment. 

“Life just got better and better and better every year,” Brown said.

Now, Brown said his life is centered around being three things: a great husband, a great father and a great minister. His day begins with a caregiver helping him get dressed and ready, while his wife, April Brown, gets their sons, Isaac and Isaiah, to school. Brown works with clients at the Is-Able Center and comes home to eat dinner with his family and help his sons with their homework. In the evening, his caregiver returns to aid him in getting ready to sleep.

It’s a life his teenage self couldn’t have imagined.

“At 18, I was given up on without being given a chance, but God had another plan,” Brown said.

The Is-Able Center, at 244 West Valley Ave., Suite 206, is just getting started. The staff offers free counseling services for individuals with disabilities, as well as caregivers, provided by ministers and counselors who donate their time. Four support groups — for caregivers, grief, depression and individuals with disabilities — meet during the week, along with free Friday computer classes. The center has multiple accessible computer labs, with adjustable tables to accommodate wheelchairs and computers that can be operated hands-free.

The staff at Is-Able also offers education help such as ACT, SAT and GED prep courses, college applications and funding resources. People also can come to the center for help with career planning, skills training, mock interviews, resumé assistance, job hunting and even cleaning up a wheelchair in advance of an interview. 

Brown said the center has a child care area that not only has accessible toys and tablets for children with disabilities, but can be used by parents while they take advantage of the center’s resources. His goal is to remove every possible obstacle for people to get the help they need and connect them with other Birmingham resources that fit their needs.

The Is-Able Center is funded by private donations right now. Once it grows, Brown said he would like to add more services and begin expanding the center’s reach beyond Birmingham. He also hopes to recreate a transitional program like the one that helped him find a new direction in life.

“When they leave the hospital, instead of just going back to their home and trying to figure out, ‘What do I do?’ then you come to the Is-Able Center. We house you for a 30- to 90-day period for a rehabilitation process — employment, education, whatever — to get you back out to living life fully and completely,” Brown said.

“I really hope that the light can be shed on what we’re doing here,” he added.

For more information, go to isable.org.