Column One: The place where homeless people come to die with dignity
Hanging on a wall at the Inn Between is a photo of John Cal Robb, the note he wrote before he died and the blue plastic butterfly that signaled to his friends that it was his time to go.
A blue plastic butterfly affixed to the door of a room at the Inn signals that an Inn Between resident is “transitioning” and reflects the facility’s policy that “no one dies alone.” Larsen has Stage 4 lung cancer. When she entered the facility, her intake photo captured a person barely recognizable now. In the photo, she’s thinner, and her face droops. Her hair is slicked back tight. She has a blank expression, mouth agape.
Today’s Patti is a hugger. She offers visitors the comfier seat on the patio, the one with a thicker cushion, despite constant pain blunted by fentanyl patches stuck to her thin arms. She is president of the resident council, and recently pushed for more coffee in the dining room on behalf of her neighbors. She gushes about her nieces, who call her “Aunt Cake,” as in patty-cake.
There’s bingo and karaoke and a chaperoned trip to the local Greek festival. There’s a chapel, and a small room that’s been transformed into a salon, where stylists volunteer to give free haircuts every few weeks.Olmstead is a steadying presence who never stops pacing the beige hallways of the 50-bed facility, seemingly impossible to upset.
“It’s unacceptable to build something like this right across from a school,” Victor Alvarez, a father of two young daughters, said at a Twin Rivers Unified School District board meeting in July. “They keep saying they don’t want their children to walk by Joshua’s House, and I remind them that now, people are dying on the streets. Would you rather your child step over a dead person to go to school?”But some local residents defended the effort. At the July meeting, a frustrated Marbella Sala, president of the local neighborhood association, shot back at critics. “They’re there to receive care in their last moments of life,” she said. “They’re not going to go out and stab anyone.
In 2020, at least 137 people died in Sacramento County who were homeless, and more than half of those people died outdoors, according toIn Los Angeles County, the numbers are greater: 1,988 people living homeless died last year, according toWhile Utah and California have both launched ambitious programs to curb homelessness, end-of-life-care for the population is still largely uncharted territory, said Debbie Thorpe, founder of the Inn Between.
After the facility opened, the staff received calls anytime a resident at the inn — or anyone, for that matter, who appeared unfamiliar to neighbors — was spotted outside the building.Suzanne Stephenson, who lives four houses down from the Inn Between, was the mouthpiece for what became known as the NIMBYs — the “not in my backyard” crowd.
“She was 96,” one resident, who is more than 30 years younger than Queen Elizabeth II, said crudely over a dinner of beef and sweet potatoes in the dining hall, as if to say, “duh.” “When you see someone pass away with dignity and respect, and knowing they were loved, and they find peace, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world,” Peterson said through tears. “It breaks my heart that people wouldn’t accept a place like this.”
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