The house has sparkling wood floors, stone countertops and plush couches.
It also has three kitchenettes and one very large table that could accommodate all of the residents the house can hold.
This is Melissa’s House, and soon it’ll be home to more than a dozen adults who live with mental illness.
Nearly two decades ago, Melissa Goldberg of Columbus’ East Side, lost her battle with mental illness.
Her family has spent the years since then making comfortable living spaces for adults with mental illness. In 2025, they’ll finally open the doors of a special group home in the Old North Columbus neighborhood in the University District.
Melissa Goldberg suffered from severe mental illness in the second half of her life. Her brother, Billy Goldberg, said that she lived in and out of institutions and in substandard housing.
“And there was never really a place for her to live in an environment that we thought that she could be her best," Billy Goldberg said.
When Melissa died in 2006 at the age of 36, her family set out to build the kind of place they would have liked for her to live. They were waylaid by zoning battles and “not-in-my-backyard” attitudes, so they pivoted. They started fixing up common areas in existing group homes.
“We all do better when we're in environments that are bright and colorful, and we all end up being a product of our environment," Billy Goldberg said.
The Goldbergs aimed to create places where people living with mental illness could thrive. For 15 years, they repainted rooms and added wall art, bookshelves, TVs and comfortable chairs. They updated community spaces at YWCA Columbus' downtown home on 4th Street and improved an outdoor space at Netcare's Crisis Stabilization Unit on the city's West Side.
Then, at long last, the Goldberg family was able to return to the goal of a free-standing house thanks to a partnership with the central Ohio chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and New Housing Ohio.
“It's beautiful. It's probably going to be the best group home in the whole country," said Scott Boone, president of New Housing Ohio.
The nonprofit will operate Melissa’s House and keep a staff member on site 24/7 to help residents with cooking, medication and other needs.
Melissa’s House can accommodate up to 16 residents, each with their own bedroom. Some group homes put multiple people in a room, but Boone said New Housing Ohio and Melissa's House didn't want to do that.
“These are adults, and they should have the privacy of their own bedroom," Boone said.
Boone said the goal is to get residents to be as self-sufficient as possible.
“We’re working with them to help them improve skills that they may or may not be lacking to live independently," he said.
That might mean teaching residents to keep rooms clean, take their medication on time or keep up with laundry. Still, some folks will always need to be in a group home, Boone said.
“And I will say that this is permanent housing in the sense that they can live there as long as they want to," he said.
New Housing Ohio operates around 50 permanent supportive-housing facilities and group homes across the state. Melissa’s House will be licensed and will operate much like the rest of them, but Boone said because Melissa was a real person with a real legacy, the project has a different feel.
“It's not just another group home. This is something that has meaning and purpose," he said.
Melissa’s House is expected to open to residents this spring. Boone said the rooms will fill quickly, because the need is already greater than available space.
Billy Goldberg said it’s a relief to see the house open. For him, it’s very emotional.
“It’s a family member whose struggle and ultimate death due to mental illness was not in vain," Billy Goldberg said. "But it's also emotional, because it was a fight and it was 18 years of fighting, even after her passing, to try and just do good."
He said looking at the positives, the house will help a lot of people "and that's really cool."
