About Ben Taub
Ben Taub Hospital is Harris County's public hospital, a 402-bed teaching hospital run by Harris Health and staffed by physicians from Baylor College of Medicine. It has been a Level I trauma center since 1995, one of only two in the county, and sees more than 80,000 emergency patients a year. It treats everyone who comes through the door, whether or not they can pay.
Why families need somewhere to stay
Ben Taub takes the patients other hospitals cannot or will not: the uninsured, the badly injured, the people brought in by ambulance from across the county and beyond. Their families arrive the same way, with no warning and often with very little money. A hotel in the medical center is out of reach for many of them, and sleeping in a waiting room wears a person down fast.
If money is the worry, say so when you call. The donation is suggested, not required, and nobody here will ask twice.
For the families who can least afford to be here
A serious injury does not wait for a family to have savings. The house exists so that a bed near the hospital is not one more thing to worry about.
No cost if there is no money
The suggested donation is $50 a night. If you cannot manage it, you stay anyway. That is the whole point of the house.
Call with no plan
You do not need dates or an idea of how long. Tell us what has happened and we will tell you whether there is a bed tonight.
Eat without spending
A full guest kitchen and breakfast every morning. Weeks of cafeteria meals add up; cooking here does not.
A door that closes
Somewhere to sleep properly, wash clothes, and sit in quiet between visits, a few minutes from the hospital.
We are a nonprofit kept by volunteers and paid for by donations, so that a family in trouble is not charged for a roof.