Inquire About Care

Overview

At Pappus House, you’ll receive continuous care from a team of compassionate staff and volunteers who work closely with your chosen hospice team and medical providers. We become extended family, offering warm companionship and personal care in a peaceful, welcoming home.

Each resident has a spacious private bedroom with a private bathroom and patio. You and your loved ones can share home-cooked meals, enjoy sunny days, and take in the beautiful, calming views. Family, friends, and even pets are welcome to visit any time and stay overnight.

We also support your family during this difficult time. We guide them through the journey, explain what to expect in the dying process, share helpful resources, and offer a listening ear and words of encouragement.

Our team takes on the physical caregiving, so your loved ones can focus on being family—creating memories, celebrating life, and beginning a healthy grieving process.

This collaborative approach makes sure your unique needs are met and provides seamless care for everyone involved.

Our logo, the milkweed, is symbolic of the different seasons of life and the stages of growth and transformation we all go through. The milkweed is the sole food source for the monarch butterfly, a powerful symbol of rebirth across many cultures.

The “pappus” refers to the silky, white filaments attached to seeds, which release from the milkweed’s pod in late fall. When the time is right, these filaments surrender to the wind and are carried to new places, signifying new beginnings.

Milkweed embodies:

Transformation and growth
A lightness of being as its silken threads and seeds journey to new destinations
Spiritual clarity and the uplifting of the spirit beyond earthly matters

How it works

When nearing the end of life, many people face the challenge of wanting to stay in a familiar, comforting environment but are unable to remain in their own home. Pappus House provides a solution by offering a compassionate, community-supported home for end-of-life care.

Unlike a hospice, nursing home, hospital, or medical facility, Pappus House feels nothing like a clinical or institutional setting. Instead, it offers the simplicity, ease, and familiar comforts of home, allowing residents to experience peace and dignity in their final days.

Pappus House works in partnership with hospice agencies and medical providers to complement the existing care system. While hospice agencies handle medical care and symptom management, Pappus House provides a warm, residential environment with continuous, non-medical personal care.

This collaborative approach ensures residents receive the support they need while families are relieved of caregiving responsibilities and can focus on being present with their loved ones.

Price

We welcome and serve anyone who meets our criteria, regardless of ability to pay. The current daily rate for residents is $385 per day. For those with the greatest need and the least financial resources, we overcome financial barriers by providing a sliding fee based on Federal Poverty Guidelines.

Our daily cost of care includes all personal and comfort care services:

Hygiene
Meals
Laundry
Activities and recreation
Support services for our residents and their families.

Daily expenses in an end-of-life care home, including room and board, are not covered by insurance. Pappus House does not receive federal (Medicare) or state (Medicaid) funding. While medical care provided by hospice agencies for our residents is typically covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and many private insurance plans, Pappus House is not part of these financial transactions.

How to get started

Community and family members

If you have a friend or a loved one who you believe would benefit from the supportive end-of-life care that Pappus House provides, please call or email us for more information.

Hospitals

If you have a patient who needs end-of-life care but needs a more supportive situation than their current living situation can provide, please call or email us to discuss admission. Medical records can be sent via online referral systems, secure email, or fax to 877-417-7071.

Hospice Agencies

If you are currently caring for a patient who needs more round-the-clock support than their current living situation can accommodate, Pappus House is available to partner with you to provide that 24-hour support. Your agency would continue to be the primary hospice provider, and the Pappus House team would work in conjunction with your agency team to provide the constant personal care required. Please call or email us to discuss admission.

Q&A

A community-supported home for end-of-life care is not a hospice, nursing home, hospital, or medical facility. Nothing about it is clinical or institutional. In fact, it has all the simplicity, ease, and familiar comforts of home. It does not compete or replicate services that already exist in the community.

Instead, it gives those facing the end a choice of where and how to spend their last days.

If you’re unable to remain in your own home, a place like Pappus House is a compassionate and innovative residential living option that feels like home and removes the stress of caregiving from your loved ones.

This type of home operates as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, sustained by the generous support of the community. Its true strength lies in its people and the meaningful relationships they foster. Residents and their families experience a profound healing when surrounded and supported by an extended and involved community and the outpouring of their kindness.

Our home serves people needing round-the-clock end-of-life care such as:

A person without family and/or without the support and safety needed at the end of life.
A person wishing to die in a home, rather than a medical institution.
A person who has no available caregivers due to family who either live at a distance or have work obligations.
An elderly person whose frail caregiving spouse can no longer keep up with the strain of care and also needs support.
A young dying mother or father who wishes to stay in their own home near their children for as long as possible, but wants to be elsewhere at the very end when symptoms advance.
A person who doesn’t want to be a burden on their loved ones and wishes to spare them the traumatic memory of dying at home.
A person who simply desires to die in a more supportive environment surrounded by community with the inspirational support of many.

Our home has 8 large, private bedrooms.

The paid staff at our home become extended family members to our residents, allowing family members to focus on spending precious time with their loved ones versus being consumed with personal care and symptom management.

Paid caregivers provide personal care and assistance to our residents. This includes meals, bathing, grooming, toileting, dressing, position changing, complete bed care, ambulatory assistance, transfer assistance, feeding, personal safety, laundry, and medication administration.

Caregivers serve as advocates for our residents, providing truly patient-focused care. They are certified in medication administration and trained specifically in end-of-life personal care needs.

The hospice provider, chosen by each resident, provides the medical care with regular visits from their interdisciplinary team, just as they would in a person’s private home. The hospice agency develops and directs the medical plan of care in cooperation with the resident, their family, and the staff at our home. They also provide bereavement care for the surviving family members afterward.

Our volunteers fill a multitude of needs. With our residents, they provide companionship, a listening heart, assistance with writing letters, reading aloud, holding hands, maintaining a quiet bedside vigil, and supportive interactions with family members.

With the home itself, volunteers help with meal preparation, gardening, lawn care, running errands, answering phones, office and clerical assistance, light housekeeping, laundry, and maintenance.

Volunteers also help with fundraising, public relations, event planning, and committee work with the Board of Directors.

Our home collaborates with the hospice agency chosen by each resident. York County has many hospice options, and all are welcome to care for their patients at our home.

As an independent nonprofit, we work with all hospice agencies equally, serving as a unifying resource for the community. We believe that when people and organizations come together with the shared goal of providing compassionate, mindful care, we can create a greater impact for those we serve.

Ensuring seamless care starts with trust and open communication. Our team maintains continuous, transparent communication with each resident’s chosen hospice agency to provide the highest quality of care. This collaboration and shared knowledge are essential to the resident’s comfort and overall experience.

Our top priority is always the resident’s well-being. As an “extension of family,” we advocate strongly for their needs and respond promptly to changes in comfort levels. We also adhere to all guidelines for medication management, ensuring that care is delivered safely and efficiently.

We welcome all people regardless of economic status, ethnicity, race, or religion who would like to be cared for in our home. However, admissions are based on the individual with “the most need and the least options,” as well as the required level of care, safety considerations, and bed availability.

Each person must meet the criteria for hospice services, be under the care of a hospice provider, and have a prognosis of around three months or less.

A person can self-refer, or referrals can come from a family member, friend, a physician’s office, a hospice agency, one of our hospitals, other healthcare facilities, clergy, or social service organizations. A referral and admission to our home can even come from another state if a family wishes to move their loved one closer to them in York.

We welcome family to be as present as possible. We do not have set visiting hours for immediate family. You are welcome to visit your loved one as often as you like and stay as long as you like. If you wish to spend the night at Pappus House, there are pull-out beds in each resident room, as well as cots available. There is also a guest bedroom available upstairs with a full private bathroom.

We believe that a beloved pet is family and that the bond shared with their owner is both affirming and life giving. We welcome visits with well-behaved pets whose vaccinations are current. A copy of an up-to-date rabies vaccination is required before or at the time of the visit.

Our daily cost of care includes all personal and comfort care services:

Hygiene,
Meals,
Laundry,
Activities and recreation, and
Support services for our residents and their families.

All of the community-supported homes for end-of-life care across the nation have successfully sustained themselves with careful and resourceful planning and the goodwill and generosity of the community.

Our funding comes from a variety of sources, such as: