HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) – Laughter echoes through the kitchen as two friends take turns preparing lunch, inserting some playful jokes into an already lively conversation.
On this particular day, meatloaf is on the menu along with healthy sides, including mashed potatoes and butternut squash with sweet onions.
As one quickly learns from watching them, volunteers Neil and Sonny prepare meals that are highly anticipated.
“We post our photos on Facebook every Monday and say: This is what we are serving at Omega House today for the staff and patients.” “We have a lot of people looking forward to it, and we’re getting more volunteers,” Sonny explains.
Sonny and Neil, and perhaps the laughter they bring, are part of the main components that make up the game Omega Housea Montrose mainstay complete with a living room and garden that you might not immediately realize is a hospice.
I will treat them as if they were my own.
Eleanor Munger, founder of Omega House, 1986
“The environment is like home, and I’ve never seen that before,” Ramona Friedel, another volunteer, told ABC13.
But making it feel like home means it works exactly as founder Eleanor Munger intended.
“She was a retired Montessori teacher, so she had no medical background at all. She was 74 years old, and she felt like this was something people needed — an environment that was really loving and nurturing,” said Sandy Stacy, director of Omega House.
Munger’s inspiration came during the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s when she visited hospitals and HIV patients who had once led vibrant lives as designers, decorators, ballet dancers, and business owners, but when they fell ill, found themselves shunned not only by hospital staff and the community, but also by their families.
“It’s the fear that no one will know how it’s transmitted, so the (hospital) staff is isolating them,” Stacy explained. “(The staff) were masked. They had disposable dishes. It also led to a lot of families not wanting to contact them directly because they didn’t know if it was casual contact.”
“They (patients) missed the touch they lost in hospitals,” Stacy recalls. “And the patients noticed it. They noticed that they weren’t being touched.”
Education about HIV It has come a long way since then, as researchers discovered that the virus can be transmitted sexually through bodily fluids as well as through blood or breast milk.
However, you cannot get the virus by shaking hands or hugging someone with HIV. You also can’t get HIV by touching things like dishes, toilet seats or doorknobs used by an HIV-positive person, according to the federal government’s website.
The virus does not spread through air or water, nor is it spread by mosquitoes, ticks or other insects.
We don’t want to be seen as a diagnosis, whether it’s diabetes, cancer, or HIV.
Dr. Charlene Flash, President and CEO of Avenue 360 Health and Wellness
Once Munger saw the need, she turned to her church for help. As Stacy explains, Deacon gave Munger a check for $10,000 that she was able to use to buy a house on Brannard Street in Montrose.
She recruited a fellow church member, Dr. Robert Uy, to serve as medical director and mentor.
“She had her calm, calm nature to sit with someone at the end of her life,” Stacey said.
ABC13 was there in 1986 where Munger shared her mission in her own words during an open house in August of that year.
“I will treat them like they are my own, model my love for them in nursing care, and provide counseling if they want it,” Munger said then-ABC13 reporter Leslie Brinkley.
The opening of Omega House made Houston one of the few cities in the United States to offer this type of pioneering care for AIDS patients.
the Texas State Historical Society She notes that the hospice eventually received License No. 1 from the state of Texas as a private care facility with the hospice designation. This makes it the first licensed residential facility of its kind in the state, TSHA said.
1986 was also important because that was when it happened International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses He announced that the virus that causes AIDS would officially be known as human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
“What you learn when you care about people with HIV is that it’s more than just the disease. It’s about the person,” said Dr. Charlene Flash, president and CEO of Avenue 360 Health and Wellness. “We all want to be focused. We don’t want to be seen as a diagnosis, whether it’s diabetes or cancer or HIV.”
Dr. Flash, an HIV physician trained in medicine and pediatrics, knew since she was a little girl that she wanted to eliminate HIV.
Through its work, Dr. Flash She led the way in HIV prevention, developing one of the country’s first programs — outside of clinical trials — to prescribe drugs Pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP For people who are not infected with HIV and who are at higher risk of contracting the virus.
“The virus doesn’t know if you’re black, white, or Hispanic. It doesn’t know if you’re gay or straight. A virus is a virus. So everyone can be at risk of contracting HIV,” Dr. Flash said.
Recent data provide a picture of what this risk looks like.
A A report from Harris County Public Health released in April 2025 It found that between 2016 and 2022, the rates of people living with HIV and new HIV diagnoses were higher in Harris County than in Texas.
The age group from 25 to 34 years recorded the highest rates of new cases. Black and multiracial communities have the highest rates of HIV infection in the county, the study says.
That’s why experts say testing and prevention are so important. You can find information about Free tests and demos here.
We fill the gap. We don’t judge them here.
Sandy Stacy, Director of Omega House
Stacy felt called to work with HIV patients as well, and told ABC13 she knew how limited the resources were for them, so at 40, she went to school to become a nurse.
“I wanted to do more,” she said.
Stacy was appointed Director of Omega House Hospice in 1998.
The hospice initially served primarily the gay community, but has since grown into a refuge for those who have sometimes fallen through the cracks or been shunned by society, from the homeless and recently incarcerated to those with mental health issues and substance use disorders, Stacy says.
“It’s a combination of people who would never sit at the table together, and today at lunch, they will,” Stacy said. “So that’s also something that’s useful to see.”
One example of that humanity came when a transgender woman moved into Omega House after Stacy said she was kicked out of the hospital.
“The nurses, myself, we were sitting there with her, just reassuring her, putting gloss on her lips, things she would do to anyone,” Stacy said. “I felt like she didn’t have to demonstrate with us. We called her by her feminine name, which the hospital wasn’t. So, we’re filling the gap. We’re not judging them here.”
This willingness to care for those who are often overlooked is also why Dr. Flash describes Omega House as “the emerald of society.”
“Omega House is a space of hope for those who feel like all hope is lost. Omega House is a nurturing space for people who feel there is no opportunity for care,” Dr. Flash said.
The eight-room hospice offers 24-hour nursing service as well as pet therapy. To date, it has served more than 1,700 people, in large part due to volunteers.
According to the home, volunteers logged 5,000 hours last year alone.
Stacey says the difference Omega House has made is clear.
“I’ve had a parent or family say to me, ‘I was worried about finding him dead in the street, so I came here, and he’s in this beautiful room, and he’s clean, and you all shaved him. It’s like I never thought I’d see that again,'” she said, adding that everyone at the hospice supports each other as losses occur almost weekly.
“It makes me feel very much a part of what’s going on in the world, where people feel comfortable and not afraid to be in a place like this,” Friedel said. “Especially in their last days, it’s very important that you don’t want to die alone. And these people come in, and it makes a big difference for them that they won’t be afraid to die alone.”
“That’s how I feel like I’m making such a difference with this person, that they’re not afraid,” Friedel continued.
As Munger told ABC13 in 1986, she wasn’t afraid, either.
“I’ve faced death myself, and I’m comfortable with that,” Munger said. “That’s easier for an older person like me than it is for younger people, and I think I can share a little bit of that even if it’s not expressed in words.”
Omega House will celebrate 40 years of service in 2026.
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