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Housing is health: Partnering to help the vulnerable find sustainable homes
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The community center staff helped Jesse complete a coordinated entry assessement, which confirmed that he qualified as chronically homeless and was in need of permanent supportive housing. Open Door Supportive Housing stepped up. Soon, Jesse was living in a fully furnished apartment where he could cook his own meals and bathe in his own shower. The supportive housing team also helped him get an ID and other official documents, and even guided him through the process of re-applying for Social Security benefits that were terminated during an extended stint in jail. It’s all part of Open Door’s housing first approach, aimed at addressing the root causes of homelessness and building a foundation for housing security.
uring four years of living on the streets of Lubbock, Texas, Jesse visited the Open Door Community Center almost every day. There, he ate
breakfast; picked up toothbrushes, deodorant and other personal hygiene items; used the shower and phone; and even kept a locker with his belongings. But in June 2021, the ministry dedicated to helping people experiencing homelessness was able to give Jesse much more than a hot meal and a place to freshen up. Open Door was able to help Jesse find a home.
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Housing people is the easy part ...
The stabilization and recovery and treatment once they become housed is where the bulk of the work happens.
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Just like Open Door, Providence believes that safe, affordable housing is foundational for financial, physical and mental well-being. In other words, having a place to call home is essential when it comes to everything from holding down a job to alleviating financial and emotional stress to enabling food security and regular health care.
Housing is certainly key to Providence’s vision of health for a better world. The question becomes who is best able to tackle this issue in each local area or community. Sometimes it’s Providence, which operates 17 supportive housing locations. But the community health needs assessments often reveal other local organizations that are already equipped and responding in their own neighborhoods. That’s why Providence puts its resources into supporting grassroots nonprofits like Open Door that already have a positive foothold in
the community.
“We don’t want to add complexity or slow processes down where it’s already working,” says McAninch-Jones. “Providence sees that it’s not solely our problem to solve, but we certainly have an important role, caring for patients and communities. We’re there to offer financial and resource support. We’re there to be partners.”
— CHAD WHEELER
Executive Director, Open Door
This data provides a clearer picture of who and how many people are experiencing homelessness at one time, which is crucial when it comes to plotting out an appropriate response. Based on the findings, one community might benefit from a grassroots public awareness campaign, while another might require construction of new housing units to help their neighbors find permanent housing.
The model has proven so useful that in 2021, Providence invested funds through its grant-making partner, the St. Joseph Community Partnership Fund, in an expansion of Built for Zero across its geographic footprint.
“It provides us with a monthly scorecard of the inflow and outflow of people being newly housed,” says McAninch-Jones. “That data enables us to pivot and better understand how to provide services and shared shelter. It’s essentially our own tracking system. We’ve learned from that model.”
Housing security is a goal that extends far beyond Texas. One of Open Door’s partners in this mission to eradicate homelessness is Covenant Health, part of the Providence family of organizations. Providence is one of the largest not-for-profit health care systems in the United States. With 120,000 caregivers in 52 hospitals, 950 clinics, and a comprehensive network of services across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington, Providence has witnessed a common thread of housing and homelessness crises throughout its service areas.
“We started noticing these needs in 2017 or 2018 from annual community health needs assessments across all of our markets,” says Megan McAninch-Jones, executive director of community investment strategy and evaluation for Providence. “It shows up in a variety of ways, from a lack of affordable housing to housing instability to behavioral health and substance use, which can impact housing stability and be exacerbated by homelessness. Housing is a health initiative, and a key social determinant of health.”
One such partnership is the long-running collaboration between Providence Alaska Medical Center, the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, and Community Solutions, a movement of cities and communities committed to ending chronic homelessness using data. Together, they launched Built for Zero in Anchorage, tracking how individuals experiencing homelessness interact with the system.
Providence has also learned that there is often an overlap between people experiencing homelessness and those experiencing a health crisis. After all, a medical emergency can cause a person to miss work or be unable to return to a job, making it impossible to pay rent or a mortgage. On the other hand, people who don’t have safe housing are exposed to all sorts of medical risks and often become very ill when they can’t get their medications or regular health care.
Another troubling trend Providence and its local partners are seeing in many areas of the western U.S. is homelessness among survivors of human sex
trafficking. These are mostly younger girls, typically people of color, who are essentially
enslaved people moved up and down America’s highways and
into neighboring countries. If
they manage to escape their captivity, they are often traumatized, which contributes
to ongoing mental and physical illness and substance use issues. And most of them have no place
to go.
At Open Door in Lubbock, Wheeler and his staff usually see these victims enter through their community center.
The numbers increased so much that they’ve recently started a Survivor Housing Program in addition to their traditional supportive housing project. Through this initiative, survivors of human trafficking are immediately moved into transitional housing where they can receive treatment, obtain necessary documents and get access to government and social programs. With all of this support, they can begin the long climb to permanent housing, which is an essential component to living a safe and healthy life.
Last year, Open Door’s efforts were supported, in part, by Providence through an $88,000 community benefit wellness grant.
“Providence has helped us fund services and housing and the community center,” says Wheeler. “But perhaps more importantly, they’ve also used their patient navigators to connect our people with appropriate care. That’s often the biggest challenge, helping the people we serve navigate the health care system. Providence has done a great job finding those connections on the grand scale and making those relationships work.”
“Housing people is the easy part,” says Chad Wheeler, executive director of Open Door. “The stabilization and recovery and treatment once they become housed is where the bulk of the work happens. We talk about getting people out of homelessness, and that’s huge. You can treat their conditions and help them get a job, but if after 18 months they go back to the shelter, have you really accomplished anything? Getting them into a permanent home is the goal.”
Open Door team building homes for Habitat for Humanity
Providence sees that it’s not solely our problem to solve, but we certainly have an important role, caring for patients and communities. We’re there to offer financial and resource support. We’re there to
be partners.
— Megan McAninch-Jones
Executive Director of Community Investment Strategy and Evaluation, Providence
“Recognizing this in Northern California, Providence Supportive Housing is piloting the Supportive Housing and Recuperative Care Program, also known as a SHARC model, operated by an integrated team of housing and health care providers. In addition to providing housing and supportive services for people experiencing homelessness, the team identifies patients occupying acute care hospital beds who are ready to be discharged but don’t have a home. Those patients can be discharged into recuperative care beds that are designed to provide an on-ramp to permanent supportive housing. In December 2020, Providence acquired The Humboldt Inn in Eureka with proceeds from the State of California Homekey Program. The building is being converted into a SHARC program and is scheduled to open in 2023.
