Journey Home Hospice Windsor, a program of the Saint Elizabeth (SE) Foundation, is celebrating a significant fundraising milestone.
The program provides specialized 24/7 hospice care for people experiencing homelessness and structural vulnerability at end-of-life.
Nancy Lefebre, Chief Operating Officer at SE Health says since opening its first satellite location in Windsor in late 2022, the community has raised $1.2 million to help operate the site.
"We came in without any money and we wanted to see whether or not a satellite site would be possible, and came in began to work together," she said. "Our own organization invested in it, because there was definitely a need that was identified, and as everyone keeps telling me, in typical Windsor style, they got behind the concept and the program and felt that there was a need as well too, and raised over a million dollars."
She says their beds are usually always full..
"The last stats that I heard, there was approximately 8,000 to 9,000 people living rough on the street at any point in time," Lefebre said. "That's just for the population of Toronto, so if you think about that, take a subset of that in other communities and other areas such as in Windsor, we're seeing a growth in that population right across the province."
Lefebre says the organization recently received an undisclosed amount of funding from the provincial government that will permanently pay for two of the three beds offered locally.
"The hospices are unique places to run and our organization at the health enterprise also contributes funds for the basic administration functions of the hospice, but the actual permanent funding for two beds goes an awfully long way," said Lefebre."
She says the organization will be looking to fundraise around $200,000 annually to help pay for the third Windsor bed.
Journey Home Hospice opened in Toronto in 2018 before expanding to Windsor four years later.