Bethany Children’s Health Center celebrated the opening of its first home in a new initiative that aims to address the need for affordable and accessible housing for individuals with disabilities during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.
Dewayne Pollard, 21, is serving as the pilot resident for the Mattie Homes Project. He’s a former patient at Bethany who was in a car accident in 2019 in his hometown of Altus. He broke his neck, and now he has C4 to C6 tetraplegia.
The house he’s moving into is called the Dewayne Model: a two-bedroom, two-bath home with full wheelchair accessibility just south of the hospital. It boasts features ranging from an open floor plan with a full turning radius to advanced smart technology, like an oven he can control with his phone and an induction cooktop that only heats when a pan touches it.
Pollard said he particularly loves his new kitchen sink, which can turn on with just a touch of his hand…