Joseph & Mary's Home launches campaign to modernize NE Ohio’s only facility to care for medically fragile men experiencing homelessness

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Tags: Joseph & Mary's Home , Outreach

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Joseph & Mary’s Home, Cleveland’s only provider of post-hospital medical respite care for people experiencing homelessness, will begin construction in July to renovate and relocate its facility for men. To support this transformational project, “A New Home for Healing” Campaign has a goal of raising $2.5 million. To date, a total of $1.95 million has been raised, and Joseph & Mary’s Home is excited to announce a matching gift of $150,000 from the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine to inspire community support.

To learn more and to donate to the campaign, click here

Located in the Central neighborhood of Cleveland, Joseph’s Home was founded in 2000 by the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine (CSA). The Sisters saw an unmet need in the community for a place where medically-frail men experiencing homelessness could recuperate after leaving a hospital. In 2022, adjacent to the 11-bed Joseph’s Home, the 10-bed Mary’s Home opened to provide care for women, and the organization became Joseph & Mary’s Home. Joseph & Mary’s Home is one of the varied ministries of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Augustine and the Sisters of Charity Health System.

“The campaign is more than renovating a bricks and mortar space, it is building a new future for Joseph & Mary’s Home to fully meet the needs of male adults experiencing homelessness, so that we can continue to serve them with dignity and high-quality care,” said Jan Murphy, MSN, FACHE, president and CEO, Sisters of Charity Health System.

Beth Graham, executive director, Joseph & Mary’s Home, added, “For more than 20 years, we have helped hundreds of men recover from medical issues and obtain stable housing. We provide an essential service in Northeast Ohio, and fill an important gap in social services in our community.”

Graham explained that the success of the Joseph & Mary’s Home is based on an integrated care model. Residents, each assigned to a private room, benefit from medical supervision, nursing care, education about their conditions and treatments, medication management, nutritious meals, and coordination with health care, supportive services and housing providers. The goal is to help residents stabilize their health and safely establish stable housing and self-care. Cleveland’s traditional shelters are not designed to care for individuals recovering from surgery or other acute health conditions. Instead, when the individuals experience an emergent medical issue, they are rushed to a hospital, treated and then discharged back to a traditional shelter or to the streets, which starts the cycle all over again.

“I believe that integrated behavioral health offers the only opportunity to break the tragic cycle of streets, hospital, and shelter,” said Campaign Chair Tom Tyrell, CEO of CollaboRx and visionary non-profit leader in Cleveland. “Joseph & Mary’s Home is one of the few organizations in the country embracing it and the results speak for themselves – they treat nearly 150 people each year with 67% of alumni exiting into safe, stable housing, and 90% still in stable housing over six months later. I am proud to be part of this critical campaign to support these men and women, who rely on our services during their most vulnerable moments.”

To sustain the success of Joseph & Mary’s Home, the renovation involves moving the current men’s facility to an adjacent building, at 2302 Community College Avenue, modernizing the space and making it 100 percent handicapped accessible. The anticipated completion of the renovation and relocation is in summer 2025, marking the organization’s 25th anniversary.

This need is greater than ever to provide an updated medical respite care facility: As our population ages the number of unhoused seniors is projected to triple by 2030. “The Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine have always looked to provide services that were not being met. With the founding of Joseph’s Home, the Sisters were among the first in the country to establish a facility to deliver care for those who have nowhere to go after a hospital stay. As in all of our ministries, we have sought to serve the most vulnerable among us. We are again looking to the future by renovating Joseph’s Home,” said Sister Judith Ann Karam, CSA, LFACHE, congregational leader of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine.

The Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine are excited to announce a $150,000 match to inspire others to join in supporting A New Home for Healing Campaign. Qualifying gifts to the capital project will be matched 1:1 up to $5,000 per individual donor. Of the $2.5 million goal, $2.2 million will be used for the renovation, while the remainder will help build the endowment and assist with operating costs.

Joseph & Mary's Home is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.