Linda Falkenstein
One of four bedrooms in Solace Home.
It started as an idea from palliative care physician Dr. Ann Catlett. Catlett had experienced having to discharge terminally ill patients who had no housing onto the streets. And she had seen a model home where patients without a home could live out their days in peace, receive hospice services and other daily palliative care.
Anyone who’s ever been involved in caring for someone at the end of life knows that it is a serious responsibility. Those approaching the end of life need much caring help and a comfortable, comforting place in which to die.
Thus was born Solace Friends, a Madison-area nonprofit with the goal of opening a care facility for people with terminal illnesses who are unhoused or experiencing housing insecurity. Their work has now resulted in Solace Home, a four-bedroom facility at 4142 Monona Drive.
The opening of the adult family home was celebrated Tuesday with a press conference and tour of the facility. Speakers included Dane County Executive Joe Parisi and representatives from the four area hospices that will work with residents of Solace Home: Agrace, Heartland Hospice, Interim HealthCare of Madison and SSM Health at Home Wisconsin. Parisi called the project “a no-brainer for the county to support,” adding, “It’s bringing value and light to the community.”
The group recently received a $100,000 grant from the county.
Linda Falkenstein
Solace Home sits across from Lake Monona next to the Lake Edge Shopping Center. Care with dignity is its goal.
Solace Friends spent about two months looking for “the right space,” the group’s executive director, Kendra Deja, tells Isthmus in an interview. At first, the hunt was downtown, near the population the group serves. But the eventual location on Monona Drive checked off many boxes. A large ranch house originally built in 1956, it had previously been used as an adult day care facility as well as offices for NewBridge Madison, a nonprofit serving older adults, so it already had accessibility ramps in place. It has a large backyard and a front lawn with a clear view of Lake Monona. It’s also on a bus line. The group bought the building in August 2022 and has been renovating it since, with many volunteers pitching in for Saturday workdays.
Executive director Kendra Deja.
It was a complete renovation, says Deja, with hallways needing to be widened for gurneys. But the sense of a homey ranch house remains. The large living room looks out to the lake across Monona Drive; a second living/dining area, in what was originally the house’s garage, is an additional gathering space. The kitchen has new cabinets and appliances. A staff office, an area for hospice workers, a “quiet room” for counseling or spiritual advisors, and a large back deck join the four bedrooms, each with its own television, and beds sporting handmade quilts.
Furniture was largely donated, and there is plenty of art, also donated, throughout the house.
Solace Home can accommodate up to four persons diagnosed as having six months or fewer to live and who are eligible for hospice services, and are homeless or facing housing insecurity. It is not a hospice; residents will have to be signed on with a licensed Dane County hospice agency, whose staff will come to the residence just as they would come to any patient’s home. Solace Home staff and volunteers will help with more day-to-day needs of the residents, including personal care, helping keep track of medications, meals, laundry and emotional support.
While hospice care is a benefit of Medicare/Medicaid, support services are not. That’s where Solace Friends comes in, generating donations to pay for them.
The facility is starting with four residents/bedrooms in part because facilities with three or four unrelated people qualify as an adult family home under Wisconsin law. Five or more unrelated people under care means the home is a community-based residential facility, with different regulations. “We needed to start small,” says Deja, “and establish what the need is.” There is no accurate number of people who are dying unhoused. Deja says the group is also already being asked about expansion.
Referrals to Solace Home will come from hospitals, hospices, shelters, police departments and other social service agencies.
“It’s an intimate facility; it is a home,” says Deja. Prospective residents will start with “a conversation, to make sure we fit their needs. We vet each other.” Solace Home will try to admit residents “first come, first served,” but some persons may move up on a wait list “due to medical acuity.”
“My goal is to be as transparent as possible and let [everyone] know where they are on the wait list.”
Solace Home has started taking referrals; its last step was its final licensing by the state.
How long individual residents will stay at Solace Home is impossible to determine. While they will all have been diagnosed as having six months or less to live, Deja can envision cases when a resident will be getting care “for the first time in a long time, getting meds on time, fed well. They may outlive [the six months]. And that will be fine.”
Linda Falkenstein
The remodeled kitchen at Solace Home.
A capital fundraising campaign will be kicking off later this year, says chair of funding Peter Tropman, who praises the generosity of supporting organizations in getting the physical facility off the ground. The new campaign will be geared toward establishing an endowment to continue to fund the daily operations of the home.
More info about volunteering or donations can be found at the Solace Friends website.
