{"id":23424,"date":"2019-04-04T19:24:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23424"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:24:30","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:24:30","slug":"hope-house-hospice-on-hunt-for-new-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hope-house-hospice-on-hunt-for-new-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope House Hospice on hunt for new home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After more than 35\nyears serving clients in Aurora, King and Richmond Hill \u2013 and after more than\nfive years in Aurora \u2013 Hope House Community Hospice is on the hunt for a new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Hope\nHouse, which serves clients with life-threatening diagnoses, their caregivers,\nand those who are bereaved, supported more than 600 clients. It\u2019s a sign that\npeople are taking advantage of their services more and more and while some might\nconsider that a success, it brings with it its own challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply stated, they\nneed more room to serve the individual than what is currently offered in the\nIndustrial Parkway South building they share with Big Brothers Big Sisters of\nYork, the Aurora Food Pantry and the York Region Food Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we moved here\nabout five years ago, we had about three staff, probably all part-time at that\npoint,\u201d explains Heidi Bonner, Executive Director of Hope House. \u201cNow, there\nare seven of us so, from an office perspective, and space-wise, we have been\nreally jam packed. In the beginning, our program was our volunteer in-home\nvisiting program. In the years since, we have developed some wellness\ninitiatives and the wellness programs are available to people who are diagnosed\nwith an illness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These wellness\nprograms, she says, have grown significantly since its inception because they\nserve all three groups of clients \u2013 the people diagnosed with the illness,\ntheir caregivers, and the bereaved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She estimates that nearly\n95 per cent of the wellness programs serve clients in each of those three\ncategories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They aim to build\ncapacity in these programs because they are group programs and \u201cbring the\nmaximum bang for your buck.\u201d They involve one facilitator and each facilitator\ncan provide support for up to 10 people, supporting more individuals with less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving private space\nfor our clients and staff to meet is a bit of a challenge,\u201d says Ms. Bonner.\n\u201cWe don\u2019t have very many spots for that and those private spaces are a big\npiece. The current building is set up so that there may be a large amount of\nsquare footage, but the space can only be used for one program because there is\nno ceiling, sort of a studio area, so even though there are big spaces, only\none program can happen at a time because of privacy \u2013 and the sound travels\nbeautifully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA new space would\ngive us the ability to offer more programs simultaneously and easier, and would\nalso give staff more space to meet with clients and small groups to meet as\nwell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both government\nsupport and increased awareness throughout the community are key factors in\nHope House\u2019s growth. Community support demonstrated through fundraising\nendeavours have enabled them to put more programs into place, offering a menu\nwith greater diversity for the community and, along with that, increased\ngovernment support has enabled them to bring on more staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith our wellness\nprogram, we\u2019re able to serve many people and we are fortunate that because of\nour community and the way they support us, we\u2019re able to offer a great variety\nof programs for different needs and we\u2019re able to develop programs when the\nneed arises. [Fundraisers like our Jitterbug Ball] have given us the\nopportunity to really support our community as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what exactly is\nHope House Community Hospice looking for in a new home? It depends on what\u2019s\navailable. They are asking community landowners if they might have a property\navailable that would suit their needs, a property that could be leased \u201cto gold\nstar tenants on very good terms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can turn your\nunused space into a heart of a community,\u201d says Leslie Hobson, Chair of the\nHope House Home Hunt, in her pitch. \u201cWe are a registered charity with a stellar\nreputation. Do you have space to share in an existing facility for a wonderful\nentity that provides so much? Or a creative idea for another way for us to find\na space solution? Let\u2019s talk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned new\nskills, new understanding,\u201d said client Don, who has participated in Hope\nHouse\u2019s Picking Up the Pieces program and wellness services. \u201cMy family has\nbenefited in so many positive ways as a distinct result from these new skills\nand learnings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Lisa, a parent\nof a participant of Hope House\u2019s Children\u2019s Bereavement Program, \u201cMy son and\nother children who had been born in the same position as he, or experienced a\ngreater loss than he did\u2026I feel it has made him more aware of others\u2019 feelings\nand what they have overcome. I think he is looking for answers himself on how\nto deal with things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on\nthe Hope House Home Hunt, contact Leslie Hobson at lesliehobson@sympatico.ca.\nFor more information on Hope House itself, visit www.hopehouse.com or call\n905-727-6815.<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After more than 35 years serving clients in Aurora, King and Richmond Hill \u2013 and after more than five years in Aurora \u2013 Hope House Community Hospice is on the hunt for a new home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-65O","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 21:13:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}