The Healing House is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a house, at 303 Lathrop street in Madison, where people struggling with homelessness or other housing-related issues are able to heal from surgeries, pregnancies and other health conditions.
Tonight, from 5-8 p.m., Madison-area Urban Ministry (MUM) will be hosting a fundraiser in conjunction with Hotel Red and Operation Fresh Start to help raise funds covering the cost of renovating the Healing House as well as providing services there.
Operation Fresh Start, along with Sweeney Construction, have been working hard to remodel the building that has been the sight of many things over the years, such as AIDS Network.
Tonight’s event will mark the third year in a row that there has been a fundraiser for the Healing House, which will serve homeless families from all over Dane County and is one of only 65 houses of its kind in the United States.
With renovations now close to completion, Healing House’s doors will be opening over the weekend. But MUM Executive Director Linda Ketcham says they have been working with families this entire time.
“So, even though doors aren’t open, we’re still working with families,” Ketcham tells Madison365. “We still get referrals from people who are being discharged from hospitals or who are pregnant or having complicated pregnancies. We’re partnering with The Road Home.”
Ketcham says this will be the first recuperative house of it’s kind in Wisconsin. In 2012, the Dane County Board asked MUM to conduct an inquiry into a number of homeless residents living on the site of an old car dealership on East Washington Ave. Residents had been staying there in the aftermath of the Occupy movement. The MUM task force identified some of the gaps in care in and living situations of those residents but needed to do more in order to understand the full breadth of issues residents experiencing homelessness were facing.
One example is that of homeless families or residents who are hospitalized for any number of reasons, particularly pregnant women giving birth. In Madison, hospitals were giving care but then discharging homeless people right back onto the street without attempting to contact shelters or anyplace for those people to go.
Healing House will provide those human beings with a place to go. A place to recuperate after giving birth or having surgery and for families who have children that had to receive care as well.
“Kids who have surgeries need a safe place to recuperate. So the need became really clear,” Ketcham says. “So we talked to other shelters and providers around Dane County and that’s where things took off. So it was about a six-year process. We have great community partners. Having Operation Fresh Starts kids, many of whom have experienced homelessness, is great.”
Healing House will be a 24/7 place for meals, connecting people with resources, taking kids to school, helping people recuperate with a trained staff on hand. Ketcham says it will also benefit the local hospital system and save hospitals millions of dollars by helping people get strong and healthy.
At tonight’s event there will be hors d’ouerves, a chance for people to learn more about the program and a silent auction featuring many gifts to MUM from incarcerated inmates who generously create arts and crafts for the auction.
Hotel Red is hosting the event for the third year in a row at no cost.
