Belleville News Democrat: Right at Home Franchisee Opens 20 Years After Serious Injury Left Him Needing In-Home Care

In 1998, Dave Eustis was seriously injured and unable to care for himself. With in-home care not an option at the time, Eustis' family members, wife and church members were working round the clock to make sure he was comfortable.

Twenty years later, Eustis is opening Right at Home, an in-home care franchise, to make sure his fellow community members don't go through the same trouble he did.

"I went from fully functioning to not being able to do anything for myself. Usually it's a different pattern, an end-of-life situation where capacity is gradually tapering down. I went from doing anything I wanted to not able to get myself a glass of water. So that's extreme," Eustis told the Belleville News Democrat.

Recently, studies have shown that it is cheaper to keep elderly family members in their home with in-home care instead of putting them in the overall medical system.

"I can see exactly what I needed at the time and being told at rehab that there was nobody to take care of me. That's why we got on the phone to my parents and said, 'Don't know what you're doing this summer, but you're coming home to take care of me.' And we leaned on church to take care of things and find people for rides and all the other things. And the greater community of Waterloo came to my aid," Eustis told the reporter. "The Right at Home template is time-proven and if we follow that, I think we'll do very well here."