Insurance agents aren’t the first people who come to mind among those helping the unhoused, but in Reno, Mark Toomey, sipping tea and taking calls at Coffeebar in Midtown in a crisp shirt and jacket during a recent post lunch hour, fits the description.
Like others who help, from social workers to volunteers and advocates, he isn’t one to give up, or go halfway.
Toomey was tabling recently at the Washoe County Senior Center when he met Michael, whose name we changed for privacy reasons, in his 70s, with one leg, in a broken wheelchair, barely living off social security benefits, and sleeping at the Cares Campus or in alleyways.
“So he actually had insurance,” explains Toomey, previously the medical and legal director for a local orthopedic and spine practice and before that part of an investment banking firm. “So I called his insurance company and they weren't the most sympathetic to his needs. And so, because I spent so many years within a medical practice, you know who the durable medical equipment suppliers that are here in town.”
Having worked with a disabled veterans group, he also knew how to get him an electric scooter quickly, by calling up a warehouse storing donated wheelchairs from veterans who have passed away.
“So the following week I picked up Michael from the senior center and took him to this guy's facility and got him fitted for an electric scooter,” he said.
That wasn’t the end of Michael’s current ordeals though or of Toomey helping him.
“Unfortunately, he got beaten up, robbed and the scooter got taken away from him. So the process starts all over again. And that's what we're going to be doing this week, is finding him another scooter. And I'll be finding him a decent insurance plan as well,” he said.
Toomey has made it a mission to help those suffering in our community through better insurance plans. File photo from last winter in Reno.
In an email he wrote to Our Town Reno prior to our meeting Toomey wrote: “I met with a client this morning for breakfast who lives at CARES. No alcohol issues, no drug issues, just someone who life dealt some hard blows to and is now a member of the faceless, and too often times, forgotten crowd. I helped him get insured, and found a plan that will put money back in his pocket while we get him on the mend. When I dropped him off back at CARES after breakfast, he looked at me and said, ‘I have no friends, you're the only person who's looked at me, in the eye and saw a person.’ Insurance is a good thing, but there is a bigger market for providing hope to those left behind and discarded. I made it a block down 4th before I pulled over and started sobbing.”
Toomey spent six weeks in the ICU with Covid back in 2021 and seems to have gained in empathy for those struggling among us.
“I was doing the rounds of the seventh floor pushing an oxygen tank in a wheelchair. And I'd hear people crying. And, you know, you stick your head in the room, ‘Hey, you know what's going on? Can I go get one of the nurses for you?’ And they, to a person, they were all freaked out about whether or not they were gonna be able to pay their medical bills,” he remembers.
“There's a perception that people nowadays have to make a choice between food and medicine or food and care, and there really are so many options available to people, and yet so few know what those options are,” he told Our Town Reno during our in person interview. “And so I thought, well, I'll make the last 10 years of my professional career somewhat useful, and I'll try to hook those people up with what they need. I just think you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and get a little messy.”
He says at the senior center he has met many people who don’t like going to CARES or other shelters, and walk the streets at night to stay safe, and then go back to the senior center “during the daytime just to have a safe place to go to sleep.”
Part of our interview was explaining how people on both Medicaid and Medicare can boost their coverage, but he said he didn’t want to bore readers with too many details.
“A lot of people don't understand if, if they make below the federal poverty level income, they qualify for Medicaid from DWSS (Division of Welfare and Supportive Services) here. If they're above the age of 65 and they've worked in the United States for at least 10 years, they qualify for Medicare. If you can get both, the benefits in both of those programs are consolidated through a Medicare Advantage plan where you have to work within a network, but a lot of folks don't travel outside of Reno or this area, so it opens up so many more services that they don't get through Medicare and Medicaid, like dental services or vision care or hearing aids or motorized scooters.”
“Whatever your belief is from a spiritual or religious standpoint, I believe that one day I'll be standing in front of my maker and that walk from wherever I am to him is going to be lined with the people that our society has forgotten or abandoned. I would prefer to take that walk with my head up as opposed to looking down at the ground because quite frankly, those individuals have been forgotten and marginalized for way too long,” Toomey says of wanting to help people staying at the Cares Campus above and others struggling locally.
Toomey says he works with seniors to maximize the benefits they can get and match them up with what they need. He’s also tabled at Northern Nevada Hopes and for groups working with disabled veterans.
Another client he’s working with is a woman in her mid nineties whose rent was just raised while she’s paying close to $300 a month for medication.
“We made a small adjustment to her plan,” he says. “Not only did it pay for her medication, but it gave her $150 a month back for things like food and utilities. And her son calls me the next day and he said, ‘Hey, you know, my mom hasn't slept for three months since she got that rent increase and she slept last night.’”