Joseph & Mary's Home featured on front page of The Plain Dealer

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Tags: Joseph & Mary's Home , Outreach

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Joseph & Mary's Home was featured in a December 24 front page article in Cleveland's The Plain Dealer. The story was also featured on Cleveland.com. Reporter Julie Washington interviewed Ken, a Joseph's Home alumnus, to illustrate the services and support offered to the men and women who rest, recover and are renewed at the ministry. The story also explained the not one, but two successful capital campaigns that allowed for the creation of Mary's Home and the relocation and renovation of Joseph's Home.

The full text of the article is below or available by clicking here

‘Safe to heal:’ Joseph & Mary’s Home is Cleveland’s only medical respite facility for homeless adults

By Julie Washington, cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cleveland man who lost his toes to frostbite while experiencing homelessness found stability through Northeast Ohio’s only medical respite facility for homeless adults.

When Kenneth Jarrett, 57, underwent amputation surgery earlier this year, he feared he would have to recuperate while living on the streets.

Instead, he entered Joseph & Mary’s Home, where medical caregivers and social workers helped him heal, find an apartment and paid his rent for a year.

“I didn’t have anything, so they helped me get a place, they helped me get furniture,” Jarrett said. “They made my life stable so I can move on.”

When people like Jarrett don’t have a proper place to recuperate and take medication, they are more likely to be readmitted to the hospital, at an average cost of $3,200 a day, according to public health experts.

Joseph & Mary’s Home, a ministry of the nonprofit Sisters of Charity Health System, provides a path to recovery that’s both compassionate and cost-effective, the nonprofit said.

This year, Sisters of Charity Health System renovated a former dialysis center to serve as the new location for Joseph’s Home, the 11-bed men’s portion of its respite care home.

The move from a two-story to a one-story space makes it more accessible for men with mobility issues, Kate McCall, director of annual giving and communications at the Sisters of Charity Health System.

Mary’s Home, the 10-bed respite care facility for women experiencing homelessness, already occupied half of the one-story building on Community College Avenue, near the former St. Vincent Charity Medical Center the Sisters administered for decades.

The Joseph’s Home $2.4 million renovations were completed this summer, and male residents are expected to move in by the end of the year, McCall said.

A capital campaign, launched in June 2024, raised $3 million for the renovation, along with operating support and an endowment.

The city of Cleveland contributed about $400,000 from American Rescue Plan Act funds. Cuyahoga County and the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health chipped in about $855,000.

The renovations completely gutted the space, creating individual rooms, and adding new flooring, windows and ADA-accessible bathrooms.

Male residents were moved to Mary’s Home during the construction of the new Joseph’s Home.

“We are here to make sure men and women have a place where it’s safe to heal, and that they’re able to re-enter into the community after they’re fully healed,” McCall said. “It’s just a great opportunity to continue the mission of Joseph & Mary’s Home in a more accessible manner.”

Preparation for healthy life off the streets

Many of the respite facility’s patients come to the home directly from hospital stays. Others are referred by area nonprofit programs that support people who lack housing.

The respite home isn’t available for patients who need round-the-clock monitoring. Patients have to be well enough to move with a wheelchair or walker, and take care of their daily needs, McCall said.

Residents often arrive with behavioral issues. They have open wounds and limb and toe amputations. Medical staff also see chronic illnesses such as diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

During the average resident’s 80-day stay, the respite home helps with transportation to doctor appointments and referrals to behavioral health and substance use disorder services, along with finding affordable housing and teaching healthy living skills.

Many landlords are reluctant to rent to people who have been incarcerated, said Marisa Rohn, chief program officer for the Sisters of Charity Health System.

When clients do find an apartment, they can receive a stipend to cover security deposits from the home’s Journey Home Fund, which is maintained solely through philanthropic donations. The stipend’s amount varies on a case-by-case basis, the nonprofit said.

Even after patients leave the respite care facility, an alumni program provides follow-up services, Rohn said.

Joseph & Mary’s Home cares for about 120 adults each year, on an annual budget of $1.44 million. Among those adults, about 70% were medically stable when they were discharged, and 90% have stable housing when they leave, the nonprofit said.

Many clients leave Joseph & Mary’s Home with new optimism about the future.

McCall remembered a man battling with uncontrolled diabetes and alcohol use disorder. While in respite care, he was able to find a small apartment near a grocery store and stay sober for one year.

“That’s the longest he’s been sober since he was a teenager,” McCall said.

She also recalled a woman who experienced widowhood, bankruptcy and homelessness. She lost several toes to frostbite, but has been healing at respite care, where medical staff ensure her dressings stay clean and dry.

Thanks to assistance from the nonprofit, she can move into subsidized housing soon. “She’s so excited,” McCall said.

Women’s facility joined men’s in 2022

In 2000, the Sisters of Charity Health System opened Joseph’s Home in a two-story former convent on Community College Avenue, opposite the old St. Vincent Charity Medical Center.

In 2021, Sisters of Charity began fundraising to create Mary’s Home, a facility that would provide similar healthcare and services to women. The Mary’s Home capital campaign raised $1.5 million, funding the facility’s opening in 2022.

Mary’s Home took over a one-story building, adjacent to the original Joseph’s Home. The one-story building had previously been divided between a day care and a dialysis center.

In late 2024, the dialysis center moved out, and the Sisters of Charity realized that putting Joseph’s Home in the dialysis center’s old space would allow the men’s and women’s sections to be in the same building.

Being a part of the Sisters of Charity Health System has made McCall realize that mental and physical health issues and homelessness can happen to anyone.

“Joseph & Mary’s home is a beacon of hope,” she said. “There’s a lot of hardship and struggle, but there is goodness in this community. The people who work here want to be that beacon of hope for the people that they’re serving.”

Joseph & Mary's Home is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.