Jane Addams Place Shelter Moves from West Philly

Kickball game celebrating last SPARK session with Jane Addams at Vidas Field Lutheran Settlement House Jane Addams Place was an active primary shelter partner for Homeless Health Initiative (HHI) for the past 10 years. In late July, the shelter relocated to a larger building in North Philadelphia that is more structurally sound and offers the ability to house more families, including fathers, which is good news.

When Jane Addams closed its doors at its former location in the church at 43rd and Chestnut streets, the remaining families were sent to other shelters in West Philadelphia, including Families Forward Philadelphia (FFP). While we are no longer able to provide CHOP Night and SPARK programming at Jane Addams’ new location, we have added a SPARK program to the CHOP Night services currently offered at FFP. When we began at FFP this summer, the children who had previously been at Jane Addams were happy to see SPARK again. Despite being uprooted, the children found SPARK was still there to provide some stability, consistency, familiar faces and FUN!

HHI’s Karen Hudson connected our Jane Addams Place partners with pediatricians Daniel Taylor, DO, and Elizabeth Thomas, MD, from St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children to serve the pediatric healthcare needs of the children at the shelter’s new location. Additionally, Hudson connected colleagues at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine to Jane Addams Place to serve the healthcare needs of the adults at the shelter.

HHI looks forward to continuing our partnership with Jane Addams Place in its new location.

HHI also wishes to thank Drexel University for its many years of partnership and for allowing HHI to use the Vidas Field for our SPARK program for the children living at Jane Addams Place.

We celebrated our last SPARK session with Jane Addams children by inviting anyone who had ever volunteered at JA to join us for a super fun kickball game with the families and staff at Vidas Field!