Local Families Create Havens for Healing

FALL 2002 - Distance and financial need are the basic requirements for staying at one of the Homes With A Heart. With motel and hotel rooms averaging $125 a night, apartment rents sky-high, and the nearby Ronald McDonald House often full, the alternatives prior to this critical program were overwhelming to most families. Some parents resorted to sleeping in their car. Others slept in chairs in a hospital corridor. Stress and exhaustion were the result. Today, every patient family is offered decent shelter.

Alza Corporation generously provided seed funding to start Homes With A Heart in 1999. Since then, the program has helped relieve the strain on Packard's Hotels With A Heart, which offers free one-or two-day hotel and motel accommodations to families, and on the Ronald McDonald House, which is currently being enlarged and renovated.

"We needed housing for young patients and for the family members caring for them," explains Erin Champion, housing program manager at Packard. "We needed to offer it free or at a very low cost and it had to be close to Packard, so families could visit their child easily and get to the Hospital quickly for check-ups and emergencies."

Champion visited other host home programs in the country and, after outlining criteria and a careful screening process, Homes With A Heart was presented to several churches in order to enlist host families. Whether they could offer a spare bedroom in their home, a pull-out sofa in the study, or the luxury and privacy of a separate cottage, people responded. There are now 24 Homes With a Heart, from Belmont to Mountain View.

Once a host family is admitted to the program, the appropriate host family-patient family combination is sought. Many factors come into play. For example, is the host family comfortable with a teenage patient and family? How would a family feel about hosting a patient with a doubtful prognosis?

Champion becomes a meticulous matchmaker. "It's important for both to be happy," she says.

If you are interested in becoming a host home for Homes With A Heart, please contact Erin Champion, Director, at (650) 498-2569.