Plymouth Healing Communities wants to share the news that its original house, the House of Healing, will soon become the temporary home to a recently evacuated Afghan family supported by the Plymouth Welcome Circle. We expect the House of Healing to provide the family with this transitional housing until mid-June. We feel a lot of joy at being able to offer this support.

PHC’s other houses and apartments will continue to provide permanent housing to their 40-plus residents.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to put the House of Healing to this good use, but the ability to make this change is also the result of PHC’s struggles in recent years to keep strong the original House of Healing model. That model was one of combining multiple resident companions with a steady stream of persons referred to PHC by Harborview Medical Center and having a history of mental illness and homelessness — together with good prospects for succeeding in short-term shared housing as a bridge to permanent housing. The challenge at the House of Healing has come in recruiting and retaining enough resident companions for the work and also — as the mental health and homelessness landscape in our community changes — in drawing residents for whom the traditional House of Healing model can be as effective as we want it to be.

PHC had already entered into a proactive effort to work on the House of Healing model and alternatives when the possibility of PHC housing an Afghan family arose recently. We are committed to that work and look forward to sharing more news about it later this year. In the meantime, we intend to offer an enthusiastic and gracious welcome to the newest residents of the House of Healing.

Our deepest thanks to all those who have made this possible!

-Mike Pierson, on behalf of the PHC Board