The handful of residents at Joshua’s House in North Sacramento, believed to be the first hospice on the West Coast to serve the homeless population, can finally experience the comfort, dignity and respect elusive for people living on the streets.
The new facility on Larchwood Drive began caring for its terminally ill residents this summer. The site is owned and operated by YoloCares, a nonprofit hospice provider.
As Inside columnist Jeff Harris detailed last month, Joshua’s House founder Marlene von Friederichs-Fitzwater worked years to line up political support, find the best location and secure $3.5 million needed for the facility. Controversies followed from concept to reality.
“There were many times when I thought it was impossible and would never happen, but then something wonderful would occur and we kept going,” Friederichs-Fitzwater tells me.
Today the six modest single-story buildings accommodate up to 15 patients and staff. With Joshua’s House operational, a new big challenge never goes away: raising money to provide expensive, essential services.
Federal programs pay a hospice such as Joshua’s House per-patient daily rates of $260, YoloCares CEO Craig Dresang tells me.
He explains, “For that per diem, we are required by law to provide a physician, a nurse for the patient, a nursing aide who makes several visits a week to bathe the patient and take care of personal needs, a social worker, a chaplain or spiritual care person for the patient, a professionally trained volunteer who can maybe read to the patient, spend time, play games.
“We are also required to pay the costs for all the durable medical equipment, which is a hospital bed, oxygen, adult briefs. All of that and all the prescriptions related to the diagnosis. That’s why we fund raise, because we provide that higher level of care and because we are a nonprofit. And we also have to provide 13 months of bereavement support for the patient’s family.”
oshua’s House has a $1 million annual budget. That means a lot of fundraising for YoloCares, a NorCal group that finds motivation deep within its core values.
“I believe, as my organization and I know the founder believes, that every person in our country deserves dignity, compassion and respect at the end of life regardless of anything,” Dresang says. “This project is perfectly aligned with who we are as an organization, and we are delighted to finally be able to serve the community.”
Dresang was on the Joshua’s House board during the planning stages. YoloCares assumed ownership after Friederichs-Fitzwater told him YoloCares was the only organization she could trust in the role.
“We have been around almost 50 years and provide world-class care and a safety net for people who don’t have insurance,” Dresang says. “We are the safety-net provider for complex patients who might not be able to access care in other programs.”
The community value provided by Joshua’s House has never been in doubt.
“The great leveler is death,” Dresang says. “When people are unhoused, they really need end-of-life care and most hospices are not interested in providing that care for the homeless. It requires a lot of skill and work from your staff. These are typically high-cost patients. There are a lot of psycho-social needs. It’s not like taking care of your grandma in her home in East Sacramento.”
For information, see joshuashousehospice.org.
Gary Delsohn can be reached at gdelsohn@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
