Tender Mercies, Inc.

Aakash Shah, Summer 2014

Tender Mercies is a permanent housing solution for individual with a history of mental illness. Their mission is to “transform the lives of homeless adults with mental illness by providing security, dignity, and community in a place they call home.” There are several buildings that Tender Mercies owns and houses its residents, and all are located around Washington Park in the Over The Rhine neighborhood.

The setup of Tender Mercies is much like that of college dorm, where residents are allowed to come and go as they want. Resident Coordinators set up activities, and various local organizations, schools, churches, etc. volunteer to provide the residents with at least one meal a day. As a medical intern for Tender Mercies, I focused mainly on smoking cessation and nutrition and fitness awareness. I also held drop-in clinic hours and held several awareness sessions for the residents to educate the residents on the health topics that affected their population.

Working at Tender Mercies was an especially interesting experience for me. Several studies and surveys have shown that the average lifespan of a homeless individual is around 55 years. As such, the facility takes in many residents that would otherwise be facing end of life issues. It was gratifying for me to know that I was part of an organization that was providing such an invaluable service to a vulnerable population. However, when I was working at Tender Mercies, I really learned not to identify these individuals as “homeless” or “mentally ill”, but instead to see them as people not different from myself or the people I normally interact with.

Once I got to know some of the residents and they got to know me, we started small talk, which would eventually lead into conversations that would last for upwards of half an hour. I got to understand the situations of many of the residents at Tender Mercies and was able to relate to them on a personal level. All of them were people just like me, with goals and hopes and people to care for and to be cared by. I would say that this was the most gratifying part of my summer internship at Tender Mercies.