Nonprofit hospice home offers free, 24/7 end-of-life care to unhoused, low income

Dorothy Marquez has spent the last month with her brother Gerald Moya in a Downtown Albuquerque hospice home, reminiscing about their childhoods or his lime green 1964 Chevrolet Impala lowrider he loved to show off.

Moya, 59, is battling stage 4 lung cancer and has days to live.

“I tell him he could let go. He could go now,” Marquez said. “But the thing is, he’s worried about me. ‘What am I going to do? How are they going to help me?’ he asks.

“I tell him, ‘Hey, I’ll be OK.’”

Inhora is doing its best to ensure Moya feels comfortable.

“I’m very happy because he’s not in pain and he’s not out there just laying on the road because that’s what he’d probably be doing because we don’t have a place to go,” Marquez said. “We’re both homeless.”

Since April, the hospice home on Tijeras NW, near Seventh Street, has served as a place for people who are unhoused or have low incomes to spend their final days with loved ones.

“Our culture throws dying people away and hides them behind closed doors,” said Miles Gloetzner, Inhora’s founder and executive director. “And they deserve better. They deserve dignity and compassion, not an easy pill to just end it all.”

‘It’s not just a place to die’

Gloetzner, who served as a registered nurse at the Raymond G. Murphy Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center for 11 years, said he came up with the idea to open Inhora in 2022.

“Life at the end requires 24/7 caregiving, you know, a lot of presence, a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of support,” he said. “And everyday people like me can’t afford that and make that possible, but you know, it’s just sad that we have to have wealth in order to have a good death.

“So, we’re the only solution for those that can’t afford it.”

Inhora is Latin for “at the hour,” or as the group explains on its website, “We journey with persons who are ‘at the hour of death’ and with their families.” It’s a nonprofit “social model hospice home” that offers person-centered care in a non-institutionalized setting — homes that are designed to feel like a home away from home.

“(A hospice) provides each of our guests with the important medical side of care while we offer the home and caregiving,” Gloetzner said.

Inhora rents the house from Immaculate Conception Church and can have up to three patients at a time. The nonprofit prioritizes unhoused or low-income people, veterans and those with disabilities.

“If we have space and there isn’t a waiting list, we’ll care for anyone who needs it,” he said. “We envision a future in which there is a home like ours available for every person in each community — regardless of income or otherwise.”

A patient’s family, friends or a hospice can contact Inhora and request a room.

“Ultimately, we need hospice to make the official referral and it’s simplest if they are the first to contact us,” he said.

The service is free, though the home costs $150,000 a year to run, according to Inhora’s website.

“We don’t have government funding,” Gloetzner said. “We’re just powered by volunteers and donors, people who believe in it. And part of the value of all this is we feed not only the patients, but the guests themselves. Everybody is a family here. Everybody is taken care of. It’s not just a place to die.”

Guests stay in rooms furnished with a bed and couch and adorned with artwork. Common areas include a living room, kitchen, chapel and backyard.

It is all about the families and patients being comfortable, Inhora Board Chairwoman Victoria Pruitt said.

‘Not letting people die alone’

Inhora has several volunteers, like Susan Burgener, who said it is a calling.

“Back when COVID was happening and people were dying by themselves — because everybody was afraid to go talk to them or be with them, or let them in the hospitals and families couldn’t visit — I started praying that no one would die alone,” Burgener said. “When this came up and we toured this (place) as part of their open house, I realized what this is about: not letting people die alone.

“I was like, ‘Oh, that’s an answer to my prayer.’”

Along with a hospice staff and volunteers is an end-of-life doula who provides non-medical support to dying patients and their families, such as planning a funeral and doing chores.

Death has been described as the veil between heaven and Earth, Gloetzner said.

“And I’ve got to say, I believe that is true,” he said. “It’s the climax of our humanity. The climax is the peak of our existence in life. So being there when that last breath is taken is very powerful.”