“They need protection from germs, many have medical equipment that needs to be sterilized. Nurse Kelly Brewer, director of health and wellness at Mary’s Place, said that many traditional shelters can’t offer the kind of long-term housing and privacy that children with chronic illness require. They gained access to the food bank, received bus passes to transport Josiah to his appointments and enjoyed board games and volunteer visitors when he was restricted to the indoors.
Wise said that Popsicle Place gave her family more than the house they stayed at north of Seattle. We’re here to take that burden of being homeless off of you for the time being so you can focus on recovery.’” “It can be extremely powerful and very fulfilling to say to these children and families, ‘We’re here to support you through this. Brian Cartin, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Popsicle Place volunteer. “There are families that end up losing their homes and their jobs because of the time and the resources and the dedication that they devote to their children,” said Dr. Some families who come to the program had unstable housing prior to their child becoming sick, others lose their housing stability while trying to care for their children. The program is currently hosting about nine families but has the capacity to shelter more. Those who use Popsicle Place services include families with children battling cancer and mothers with babies born premature. The organization has received a couple of grants for the program, but primarily the funding comes from the general Mary’s Place budget. The cost to run Popsicle Place varies by location and need of the families. Families get private rooms, or the use of single-family houses that are loaned to the organization. Popsicle Place, located primarily at the Mary’s Place Guest Rooms in South Lake Union and at a Mary’s Place house in Shoreline, gives homeless families with chronically sick kids a place to rest and recuperate. That’s when the Wise family learned about a Mary’s Place program called Popsicle Place for children experiencing life-threatening illnesses. He still needed monthly rounds of chemo and a safe place to rest and recover in Seattle. But according to Ronald McDonald House policy, the family was no longer eligible for housing once Josiah was out of the hospital. It was a very emotional time.”įortunately, after a relatively brief course of treatment, Josiah’s cancer entered remission.
“And he said, ‘Mommy are you going to let them kill me?’ He didn’t understand how chemo worked at first and thought they were going to poison him. “I told him, ‘Honey, we gotta start treatment because you have something called cancer,’” Wise said. At first, the young child had trouble understanding what was happening to his body. The family moved into a Ronald McDonald House near the hospital while Josiah began treatment. With the help of a relative, she relocated with her wife and son to Seattle where Josiah could receive the best possible care at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “When we found out he had cancer, I felt like I hit the bottom of the barrel,” Wise said.Īt the time, Wise and her family were homeless, struggling to secure stable housing in Moses Lake, a city on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. “It kept getting worse, and so we took him to the local hospital in Spokane, but they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.”įinally, after running several blood tests, Wise received a call informing her that her son had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. “He was complaining that his legs hurt,” Wise said. Amber Wise never imagined that her 5-year-old son Josiah would one day be diagnosed with leukemia.
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