House News

Alison moved into Sarah House looking for safety. A transsexual person, HIV+, she had struggled for years to come to terms with her complicated biology.

In 1997, Brad’s family moved him to Sarah House in order that we might care for him in the last months before his death. Thankfully, that was not to be.

For eight years, Chuck was an estate manager for a large piece of property on Montecito. When he became too weak to carry on, he moved into Sarah House for hospice care.

After being released from a six year term in Chowchilla State Prison for sales of narcotics, I was fortunate enough to be allowed to parole to Sarah House.

On Monday morning, I went along with the Hospice nurse over to a small room on Robbins Street, a converted garage really. “Bill White” was lying in the middle of a tiny room, lying on a mattress badly stained with sweat and urine.

Karyn moved in today after six months as a patient at City of Hope. Her treatments for a virulent leukemia were unsuccessful. She desperately wanted to come home and see the coastline one more time.

Recently a woman living through her last weeks of HIV moved into the House. Her T-cell count was 1. Veronica had lived the last few months in the Psychiatric Health Facility. Now she was dying.

Maria, 40 years old, was the youngest child of a strong Catholic family who had raised their six children in the Santa Barbara area. Mom and Dad, now in their seventies, and all six children along with various spouses and children were devastated to find out that Aunt Maria had a large and growing brain tumor.

Ramon, a hardened man with a history of incarceration, had lived outside for the past ten years. His “homeboys” would no longer let him come stay at their house because “he gets too crazy”.

Robin Josephson 1955 – 2009