Our House NYC is Filling the City’s Longstanding Grief Support Gap

When Tami Schneider’s husband died of brain cancer 16 years ago, she didn’t know where to turn for programmed support. Leaving the hospital, there wasn’t so much as a pamphlet or list of numbers to call to help her and her then 14- and 11-year-old children navigate their grief.

“I went searching for grief support services in New York City — greatest city in the world—and came up dry,” Schneider said. “And shockingly, all these years later, that still remains the case.”

Schneider has set out to fix that. In October 2025, Schneider launched Our House NYC, an in-person grief support center serving people in the New York City area.

Our House NYC was modeled after the original Los Angeles location, which has been successfully operating for three decades. This success is attributed to its unique community-building approach.

When Schneider lost her husband, she tried attending the one-off grief support groups you find in the basements of churches or temples. But she found it hard to relate to many of the other attendees of those meetings, who she said often were in their 70s and 80s, and had lost partners of 50 years. They needed help in different ways.

Our House NYC’s concept provides a solution for this. “We are very much focused on putting people in the room with the same types of people,” Schneider said.

The model involves grouping participants by age range and relationship to the deceased — whether they lost a parent, child, sibling, or spouse.

Every other week, these groups meet at 8 W. 40th St., where Our House NYC has set up spaces designed to feel like cozy living rooms. Groups, which are typically between 10-12 people, meet on a set night for an hour and a half.

Then, over the course of several months, the group works through a set curriculum together. Our House NYC’s model uses a closed group system: the people you begin your first session with are the same people you end your last session with months later.

“The idea is that you’re actually building a community,” Schneider said. “The people that you see on the first day are the people that you’re going on this journey with through the whole process.”

Currently, the organization offers two program lengths for its standard support session—12 months and 18 months—which the organization has adapted depending on the loss one is grieving.

However, Our House NYC has already begun launching alternative programs focusing on expanding services, including to people outside of the requirements of the standard program.

Before Schneider founded Our House NYC, she wondered if there was really a need for a program like it here. After reaching two-and three-year goals within what felt like minutes, the answer became clear.

“It really has been extraordinary,” Schneider said.

Expanding Services

Though nearly everybody will or has been touched by grief throughout their lifetime, the topic is often misunderstood and underdiscussed.

“It’s a really, really big unaddressed public health issue,” said Sarah McCollum Williams, the executive director of Our House NYC.

McCollum Williams notes that studies show that unaddressed grief in children can lead to higher rates of school dropout, substance abuse, depression, and suicide attempts, making grief support essential for this demographic.

Currently, Our House NYC works with five schools throughout the city to assist with this. When a student at a school in Brooklyn died, Our House NYC was able to help guide over 75 teachers on how they could support their students as they experienced the loss.

The organization is also launching a program at the end of September for parents and children. This program is slightly different from its standard one — though it will meet one night a week every other week, this program will run twice a year for only 20 weeks, mimicking a school semester.

“The purpose of that for the parents is to learn how to support a grieving child and how to handle family matters as it relates to missing a family member, whether it be a child or a co-parent,” Schneider said.

As a rough guideline, the organization requires participants in the standard program to have lost their person no earlier than three months and no later than one year prior. However, for people who lost their person up to three years ago, Our House NYC also provides a program called Circle of Grievers.

The organization hopes to continue to expand offerings, recognizing that everybody has their own relationships to grief.

“There’s not one right way to grieve or one wrong way to grieve,” McCollum Williams said. “It really has a full range of human emotions, and we welcome that here in this space.”

Navigating Challenges

Most of the help Our House NYC receives to run its programs is volunteer-based, with each group being facilitated by two volunteers.

Because the organization has hit its goals faster than expected, it’s hoping to double its volunteer base in order to launch more groups. Currently, there are a hundred people on Our House NYC’s waitlist.

Schneider said volunteers don’t need any prior experience, and the organization provides training and curriculum. There’s also no age requirement; currently, their volunteers range from ages 25 to 85. “You just have to have a big heart,” Schneider said.

The organization has also been thinking ahead to ensure it can continue to financially sustain its operations while keeping up with the demand.

While Our House NYC does charge participants for sessions, it’s nowhere near enough to cover operating costs. Instead, this serves a different purpose.

“We want people to have the pride of knowing that they’re in a group situation, and they’re not a charity case, so to speak,” Schneider said. “But most importantly, it’s also for accountability.”

On average, one group session costs $75; however, it’s a sliding scale. Schneider said that no one is turned away for inability to pay.

Instead, the organization has sought alternative ways to fund its operations, including by seeking out partnerships with companies that could benefit from employee grief training.

As the organization watches some of the first groups launched complete their programs, navigating these challenges has paid off.

“One of the things that has been really beautiful to see is that as those groups are ending, the people in those groups have formed WhatsApp groups, and they’re meeting up for dinner and coffee, and they’ve made these really deep connections with each other,” McCollum Williams said.

For Schneider, one of her most memorable moments happened at the start, when the very first participant to come through Our House NYC’s doors told Schneider that for the first time, they felt hope.

“There’s nothing more powerful than just providing hope to one person,” Schneider said.