Patients who undergo medical treatment often need a place to stay where they can be isolated. Short-term rentals in Philadelphia and other cities play a role in filling those needs.
Daniele Parker of Richmond, Va., and her husband, Linnie, recently found themselves in similar need. Daniele has Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, a form of cancer in the bone marrow cells that produce blood cells.
One step in Daniele’s treatment was chemotherapy and the complete destruction of her immune system so her body wouldn’t reject a bone marrow transplant, which she underwent last October at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia.
During that five-week stay in the hospital, Linnie stayed in Nick’s House, a lodging facility for cancer patients and their families provided by the HEADstrong Foundation. Daniele joined him there for her next phase of treatment, a critical 100-day period to start rebuilding her immune system. Her recovery requires an expertly cleaned environment to prevent contagions and a kitchen to make all meals for her prescribed diet, both of which Nick’s House provides.
Daniele finished the 100-day chapter at the end of January. Just as her doctors were beginning to loosen her protective restrictions, such as isolation and wearing gloves and a face mask at all times, the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning its upward curve across the U.S. Between that and the usual flu season, Daniele found herself continuing to wear the protective gear just in case.
A month later, Nick’s House was forced to close to prevent their immunocompromised guests from contracting the coronavirus. Other similar facilities closed soon after, including the American Cancer Society’s Hope Lodge chapters around the U.S., leaving Daniele and Linnie and families like theirs in search of a safe place to stay.
Luckily, the social work team at Penn had long worked with Steve Patterson of Ur Home in Philly, or UrHip, a company with self-contained, furnished short-term rentals in Philadelphia. Steve welcomed Daniele and Linnie to a comfortable apartment in a new building just a few blocks from the hospital, where they will stay until May 9 when she can hopefully go home to Richmond.
“The only other options for us would have been a bed and breakfast or a hotel,” she said. “There aren’t that many options that come with a kitchen and the ability to wash clothes whenever we need to.” These features are especially critical for her while her immune system is still recovering, which will take about a year.
“This is a lifesaver.”
Philadelphia short-term rentals: Homes Away from Home
For Steve Patterson and UrHip, the need to quickly relocate patients from places like Nick’s House is new, but hosting patients of Philadelphia hospitals isn’t.
Like many, Steve fell into hosting “by accident.” Ten years ago, he moved out of an apartment in the city with a few months left on his lease. He decided to list the apartment for weekend rentals just to break even, then continued hosting casually once he discovered the demand for short-term rentals like his.
In 2013, Sweet Retreats, similar to HGTV’s House Hunters but for guests picking a vacation home, featured his property in an episode. The show guests picked his property – as did many real travelers after the show aired on national TV. UrHip took off from there.
Today, UrHip has 101 properties, primarily studios and one- to three-bedroom short-term rentals in Philadelphia, close to historic attractions, business centers and hospitals. A nod to Steve’s background in corporate housing, a quarter of UrHip guests are business travelers. Another 25% are leisure travelers or locals who need short-term accommodations during home renovations or similar situations.
The other half of UrHip guests: local hospital patients and their families.
“We set ourselves up, in the beginning, to be attractive to corporate America… and that was fine, but it wasn’t rewarding,” Steve said. “Where we got our real reward was helping those in need.”
He then found he was hosting families of patients at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). “Whenever there are kids involved, it’s not just the kid that comes to the hospital, it’s the whole family,” he said. “Mom and Dad need a support system; Brothers and sisters, and nan and grandad unite to help out the children.”
CHOP and other hospitals used to recommend hotels to families like these, but they pushed back, noting that hotels didn’t provide enough space or needed amenities like kitchens and washers and dryers. Instead, they found UrHip. Once social workers at the hospitals began hearing from them about how great the homes were, Steve and UrHip began working together with them to provide patient accommodations.
The partnership continued to grow when UrHip began receiving calls about other families who needed accommodations but couldn’t afford them. So, Steve started a charitable fund where 5% of every booking that came from the hospital would be put back into a pool. The social workers could then use those funds at their discretion to help families with accommodations, groceries, and other needs.
Read more: Why helping others is good for your vacation rental business
Hospital Hospitality
In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, UrHip began extending significant discounts to hospitals to help them rehouse patients and keep the accommodations free to Daniele and other patients. The company is also giving front-line healthcare professionals free stays up to five nights and discounts if they need to stay longer.
To serve these guests and others who may need to stay in UrHip properties – and to protect staff – the company heightened their standard cleaning and safety protocol. They closed communal lounges and other spaces in apartment buildings, began treating all properties with ozone air purifiers, and mandated leaving a property vacant for at least 24 hours after checkout before cleaners enter and sanitize the home with a bleach solution.
Within days of launching the program for healthcare personnel, UrHip began receiving inquiries. Steve anticipates this need will only grow as the outbreak worsens in Philadelphia.
But for people like Daniele and their families, the need for a clean, isolated, home-like stay is constant, with or without a pandemic. If the UrHip apartment had been an option for her earlier, she said, she would have chosen to stay there.
“It’s been super important to be able to have everything I need right here at this time,” she said. “It’s been a dream come true.”
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