![]() “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. An online petition with more than 600 signatures called it “a noble cause” but in a “wrong” location, and signatories warned of “predators.” Board members worried that the facility - involving six, small, manufactured homes - would one day expand beyond hospice care its proximity to an elementary school, the board said, “may result in impacts that impede the educational progress and environment” of students.įrustrated board members and parents pressed Joshua’s House planners about a wrought iron fence, the visiting policy and how medications would be stored. The school board voted to oppose the building of Joshua’s House, which is expected to be the first hospice center for homeless people in California and on the West Coast. “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. More than 700 miles west, just outside of Sacramento, plans for a facility much like the Inn Between have divided a community. “It was a different feeling around here.” ![]() “Three weeks ago, we had three people actively dying and others on the cusp,” Olmsted said. Some days, there are a lot of blue butterflies. It’s not always bustling like this, though. “What do I usually look like?” she joked. ![]() He complimented her outfit, and told her she looked good today. “Make sure you don’t overdo it, you’ve been running around this morning.” “Looking good,” she said to a resident who was taking vacuum duties very seriously. She showed no signs of exasperation as she checked on nurses and volunteers and juggled requests for laundry detergent, a new leaf blower and an ambulance call. Olmstead is a steadying presence who never stops pacing the beige hallways of the 50-bed facility, seemingly impossible to upset. There have been two weddings held here, after a few residents hit it off. 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. There’s bingo and karaoke and a chaperoned trip to the local Greek festival. “That’s something you don’t get to do out on the street.” We can clean up and take showers,” she offers as a sort of explanation for what healthcare and social workers have described as a remarkable transformation. ![]() When she arrived at the Inn Between, she had a prognosis of six weeks. Today, her face is fuller and often smiling. In the photo, she’s thinner, and her face droops. When she entered the facility, her intake photo captured a person barely recognizable now. She has found peace there that she did not know while living on the streets. Patricia “Patti” Larsen believes it’s the latter. The official mission of the Inn Between, located on a quiet street in Salt Lake City, is to “end the tragic history of vulnerable people dying on the streets.” But there’s debate about the true meaning of its name: Is it in between the streets and the hospital? Or in between heaven and Earth? Resembling monarchs but blue and speckled with splashes of white, the butterflies signify that someone is “transitioning” and reflect the facility’s policy that “no one dies alone.”
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