New Hospice House Planned for Sioux City (via Sioux City Journal)
Dr. Dale Holdiman, left, stands with Susan Macfarlane at the future site of the Mitchell House, a facility dedicated to providing housing to patients at the end of their lives. Holdiman is the medical director for Hospice of Siouxland. Photo credit Sioux City Journal
This story was originally published Oct. 6, 2019, in the Sioux City Journal.
SIOUX CITY -- A group of Sioux City volunteers and donors is working to build the first known facility in the area dedicated solely to providing housing for patients at the end of their lives.
Construction is expected to begin at the Mitchell House, named for the late Ray Mitchell Jr., next spring, with the doors open by next October. The house will have room for six hospice residents to live in a "home-like environment."
Two-and-a-half acres of vacant land, the site of a long-ago orphanage near Military Road and Ross Streets, was donated by the Diocese of Sioux City to the nonprofit Mitchell House group.
Susan Macfarlane, Mitchell's daughter and the Mitchell House board president, said plans for the house began nearly two years ago. Her mother and Mitchell's widow, Margo Mitchell-Wilcox, decided Sioux City should have a hospice house and provided a large donation to get the ball rolling.
Fundraising for the Mitchell House began roughly a month ago. The group has raised $1.5 million of their $4.5 million goal, which will fund the construction of the facility and provide an endowment.
Residents of the Mitchell House will have enough space for a spouse and family to stay with them, and the building's kitchen will provide food for loved ones and for the hospice patients. Each patient's room, Macfarlane said, could sleep five people.
"Most of these people haven't slept alone, when they're older, they've been married for 50-plus years, they haven't slept alone, they don't want to," Macfarlane said. "They can stay with the resident, or if family members come in from out of town, they'll have a pull-out couch that sleeps two."