Keepers of the quiet goodbye: Meet the people who pulled off a hospice miracle by overcoming society’s fear of homelessness and death itself

Keepers of the quiet goodbye: Meet the people who pulled off a hospice miracle by overcoming society’s fear of homelessness and death itself 
The Oberserver, Sacramento, CA; by Scott Thomas Anderson; 9/3/25 
Inside the decade-long struggle to make Joshua’s House a reality in Sacramento: Craig Dresang has lived in the shadow of death since he was 8 years old. Dresang was in third grade when his mother, Joyce, was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. At almost the same moment, his mom’s best friend was also given a devastating cancer diagnosis. She was gone six months later — an outcome that kept flashing in Dresang’s young mind. ...  ... [Scroll ahead in time.] The child who could never run from death became the professional willing to confront it. ...  [Working with YoloCares in Davis, CA, Dresang met] Marlene von Friedrichs-Fitzwater, a woman on a mission to create the first hospice shelter for unhoused people on the West Coast. ... Von Friedrichs-Fitzwater shared in a 2016 speech, “As a cancer survivor myself, I could not even imagine what that would be like. … Hospitals are typically discharging them out onto the streets because there isn’t any place for them to go.” ...