Pilot projects in five communities will test how best to address the health risks that are connected to homelessness. Results could help guide professionals in reducing what has been a chronic problem.
The mantra “housing is health care” has been repeated by advocates for the homeless for decades. In recent years some have examined this concept from the other side, considering the potential for health-care systems to do more than treat and release the unhoused.
In 2017, a group of health systems formed the Healthcare Anchor Network, to harness their economic resources and community relationships to directly address social conditions that lead to poor health. The more than 65 organizations that have joined it to date employ over 2 million workers and have more than $150 billion in investment assets.
A Catalytic Partnership
In December 2004, IHI launched a 100,000 Lives Campaign, with a goal of preventing 100,000 needless deaths in hospitals by June 2006. More than 3,000 hospitals enrolled in the effort, which reduced deaths by 122,000 over its 18-month duration.
Two of the founding members of the network, Kaiser Permanente and CommonSpirit Health, are among the participants in a pilot project developed by the nonprofits Community Solutions and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). The project is exploring how health-care systems can best help end chronic homelessness in their communities, with an intention to develop models than can be scaled nationally.
“Rather than counting housing outcomes, we wanted to see population level reductions in persons becoming homeless,” says Beth Sandor, co-director for Community Solutions. One way to do that is to leverage the power of large institutional players that have a disproportionate impact on their communities…