More Chattanoogans who want to pursue cancer treatment but are experiencing homelessness will now be able to do so through Welcome Home of Chattanooga, which has opened a second cancer respite care house on its nearly 5-acre property in East Chattanooga.
Welcome Home is a nonprofit organization that provides hospice to residents either experiencing homelessness or who live alone with no other support. It offers cancer respite to people who cannot receive treatment because they’re living outdoors.
“Welcome Home’s goal is that nobody is denied treatment due to their inability to pay,” said Michelle Goble, Welcome Home’s director of happiness. “We want to be able to serve as many people as possible. There’s a waitlist for both the hospice and the cancer respite right now, and there usually always is.”
The new home, which is nicknamed “Smoky,” features three private bedrooms with a living area and is one of three residences at Welcome Home of Chattanooga’s nearly 5-acre campus. In addition, the property includes another three-bedroom home for cancer respite and its original four-bedroom home for hospice residents.
Welcome Home of Chattanooga was opened in 2015, with its first site in a five-bedroom home off Germantown Road in Brainerd. The organization relocated to its current campus in October 2021 and has served more than 100 residents since its inception.
While the original mission was to provide hospice care for homeless individuals, staff noticed young people in the community were dying from cancer because they were not eligible to receive treatment without a permanent address, Goble said.
“A lot of those treatments are severely immunocompromising, and they need to be in a safe, clean environment in order to get the treatment,” Goble said.
There’s also a stigma associated with homelessness that leads some health care providers not to offer certain treatments, said Alexis Loudenslager, Welcome Home’s director of social services. Another benefit of having the facilities is to let health care providers and the community know there is an option for people who are experiencing homelessness and diagnosed with cancer to undergo treatment, Loudenslager said.
“We want everybody to have a fighting chance, and not everybody’s going to pick hospice as their way to go,” Loudenslager said.
Cancer respite patients are typically there for six months, and staff members work to secure permanent housing for them, with the goal for each resident to achieve remission and rehousing.
While living at Welcome Home, residents are free to treat the property as their own and do what they want as long as they aren’t bothering anyone else.
An unexpected outcome of offering cancer respite care was that some people live much longer than expected, said Welcome Home’s board chair, Demarland Dean. He attributed that to both the medical care and the love and stability the residents received.
“That actually helped them to heal,” Dean said in a phone interview, noting that led to the need to find more permanent housing.
Welcome Home’s campus is under construction, with the goal to at least double its capacity of 10 residents by adding another house and cottages made possible by donors, he said.
While 12 staff members help keep the facility running, Goble said the organization relies heavily on volunteers.
Volunteer roles include companions to spend time with residents, help with chores and run errands for the residents. Other roles include transporting residents to and from medical appointments and providing them dinner.
Anyone who’s interested in volunteering can contact Goble via email at michelle@welcomehomeofchattanooga.org.
Contact Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.