Welcome Home of Chattanooga, a nonprofit organization that provides hospice care to the homeless, has opened a cancer respite home to provide shelter to homeless people receiving cancer treatment.
“We recognized that we were caring for people who were dying very young of cancer because they couldn’t get treatment because they were unsheltered,” Executive Director Sherry Campbell said. “We felt that we could and should meet that need, that we should try and provide a place to keep 45-year-olds from ending up in hospice for breast cancer only because they couldn’t get shelter and couldn’t get treatment.”
The cancer respite home, a house nicknamed “Little Blue” for its size and color, is one of two residences at Welcome Home of Chattanooga’s 5-acre property in East Chattanooga, on the aptly named Quiet Creek Trail.
The other home on the property houses hospice residents. Before the new property was acquired by the organization last year, Welcome Home provided hospice care at a rented a house in Brainerd.
(READ MORE: Chattanooga nonprofit growing in its mission to offer homes to dying homeless residents)