Reliable Residence Expands Service to Help Healthcare Works in the Marshfield Area Find Affordable Housing

Friday, December 12th, 2025 -- 11:01 AM

Reliable Residence has expanded its unique service into the Marshfield area to help individuals in the healthcare community find furnished housing for assignments and rotations.

I spoke with Christina Henderson, one of the founders of Reliable Residence, and she discussed the service and the benefits of the service in more detail.

Listen to the interview with Christina here!

If you’re a health professional in this position or would just like to learn more, you can head to their website. www.reliableresidence.com

(AI assisted transcription via Otter.ai)

Christina: "So, when I was a fourth year medical student, my final year, I was required to travel from hospital to hospital throughout the country for rotations, and one of them was Duke. And so I got ready to go out to Duke. My medical school said you have to find your own housing."

"So, I had to go find something furnished for a month, that was close to the hospital, and in my budget and I looked on pretty much every platform you could think of, Airbnb, VRL, could not find anything in budget that was reasonable and even some homeowners didn't even offer a month at a time."

"So, then I ended up on Craigslist, believe it or not, and you can imagine how that went. It was, it was a hoarders home. Didn't know till I got there. There was a cockroach in my room. Woke me up one night. It was just a terrible living situation. And that kind of really stuck with me and it really impacted my rotation?"

"Well, then I matched into residency here in Madison and I overheard medical students in the elevator complaining about finding housing here. And that's when the light bulb really went off that this is a nationwide issue, and it's affecting all medical students and healthcare professionals."

Riley: "Okay, so then you got this idea then to help the healthcare community find furnish housing for assignments and rotations. Where are you now with that project? How is that going for you?"

Christina: "It's going really well. So, we launched this website in July, in Madison. We started with only about 10 properties or so and now, in December, we have well over 125 and we're not only in Madison. We've expanded it to Marshfield, La Crosse, Fond du Lac, Janesville, and we're also going down to Gainesville, Georgia, actually, as well."

"We are helping areas that need the most assistance for housing, because, as they have healthcare shortages, they bring in travel, nurses and doctors to fill in those gaps. But then when they can't find housing, they don't come. So, we're really going to the areas with the most need."

Riley: "Is this something you hope to expand, like you've kind of said that you're already, you know, throughout Wisconsin and other areas. But are you hoping to expand that even further?"

Christina: "We are, you know, we obviously want to serve Wisconsin first, especially the more rural areas that need help, but then we want to bring it to neighboring states and other areas that also need help, because our travelers here, so we may have a couple nurses that live in Madison and that then travel out to those areas and need help. So, we want to be supportive all the way around and make sure that the housing is not the limiting factor for people taking assignments in hospitals."

Riley: " What are the benefits that you see of, you know, having these housing options available for individuals who may be on these short assignments or rotations?"

Christina: "The benefits of having a platform like this is, well, one we're called Reliable Residents, because we are reliable. We're one of the very few platforms out there that does a walk through of units before they're allowed to be listed on our website."

"So, we believe that high quality renters deserve high quality units and so we personally vet them to make sure they're safe and clean. Another perk is that we only do 30 plus day housing, so we already fit the need. They don't have to go and message Airbnb homeowners and ask if they could extend beyond a weekend."

"And then we do kind of unique things as well to help cut price. So, we'll roommate match. We will help negotiate with homeowners. Anything we can really do to help a healthcare traveler out and make it more affordable for them."

Riley: "And that has to be quite a benefit to them. Obviously, it's going to help reduce stress, and, you know, potentially make it more likely that they may stay at the facility if they have a good experience there."

Christina: "Yeah, exactly. And we are seeing people coming back to the website a lot and extending their stays and we're seeing a lot of positive reviews about this service and, but most importantly, we were seeing a high number of contracts falling through at the hospital prior to this resource and now, in Madison, we're seeing a lot less of that. We're seeing that people are able to extend their contracts, which is great, because the less turnover for the area, the better."

Riley: "Anything else you'd like to add?"

Christina: "I would just say that if, if you own a property, whether it's an entire unit, a basement or a room for rent, we would love to talk with you about listing on our platform. Again, we list to travel nurses and doctors. We meet you in person. We do a walk through and at the end of the day, we're just really here to support the community."

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.