Resource Search Results

Using Data to Promote Health Equity (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This report provides practical guidance for Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) centers by conducting a comprehensive examination of financial and operational benchmark trends, empowering HCH to leverage their data resources to effectively address health equity concerns. More Details...

2025 NAP Grant Opportunity Available: The HCH Helpdesk Blog (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: In light of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) long anticipated release of the 2025 New Access Point (NAP) grant opportunity, this post will review the Health Center Program, HCH designation, and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's technical assistance offerings building off a previous HCH Helpdesk blog post and publication "So You Want to Start a Health Care for the Homeless Program." More Details...

Supporting People Experiencing Homelessness in Smoking Cessation: Healing Hands (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: In this issue of Healing Hands, we will look at the impact of cigarette smoking, vaping, and other tobacco use among people experiencing homelessness, including children, teens, families, Indigenous communities with cultural experiences of medicinal tobacco use, and people who experience other forms of social marginalization. We will also consider key aspects of communication and intervention in the realm of smoking cessation, including motivational interviewing, harm reduction, trauma-informed care, and the five stages of change model. We will end with one individual’s story about quitting smoking that illustrates both the challenges and benefits of engaging in tobacco cessation. More Details...

Shelter Health: Leveraging Partnerships to Improve Access and Build a Healthier Shelter Environment (2024). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: This toolkit contains resources health centers and shelters may use to improve access to primary care for people experiencing homelessness and identify strategies to create strong partnerships between shelters, health centers and local health departments. More Details...

Substance Use Guidelines (2024). Resource Type: Toolkit. Description: The National Health Care for the Homeless Council's Substance Use Guidelines are brief substance-specific guidelines intended for use by anyone who is a consumer of services or a service provider working with people experiencing homelessness and people who use drugs. More Details...

How EHRs Can Be Leveraged to Streamline Social Needs Screening (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Learn how screening for housing status and other Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) measures can be introduced or better integrated into health center clinical workflows. Presenters share guidance on implementing and systematizing social needs data collection in Electronic Health Records (EHRs), followed by a panel of expert health center representatives who that speak about their programs’ journeys with social needs screening programs. While this webinar will focus on health care for the homeless (HCH) health centers, anyone involved directly in social needs screening or interested in improving screening processes are welcome. Learning Objectives After this webinar, attendees will… ○ Describe the importance of capturing social needs screening data and how they relate to overall health center services. ○ Appraise their organization’s social needs screening workflow based on promising practices and examples of peer health center examples. ○ Describe strategies that could be applied to their health center to improve or streamline social needs screening process. ○ Identify which strategies demonstrated in the webinar can be introduced at their health center. More Details...

Building Relationships with Hospitals (2024). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: Attendees for this webinar will learn about the current landscape for America's Essential Hospitals and challenges they are facing in a post-pandemic landscape. Panelists from Cook County Health and Regional One Health will join to share how their hospitals partner with or operate medical respite programs. Strategies for communicating and collaborating with hospital systems to meet the needs of their community will be presented. More Details...

Status of State-Level Medicaid Benefits for Medical Respite Care (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This issue brief is intended to provide a current snapshot of the state-level Medicaid activity related to medical respite care. As often as possible, the exact language used in the Medicaid waiver requests has been included in this brief. More Details...

Incarceration and Homelessness: Reentry Considerations for Health Care Providers: Healing Hands (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: For clinics providing healthcare to people experiencing homelessness, understanding the specific challenges associated with reentry is key to offering effective and compassionate care during the reentry period. This care takes the form of understanding systems and processes in order to facilitate access to healthcare, and it also involves being willing to transform organizational structures to include people with experience of incarceration as experts in providing care to others. More Details...

CalAIM Implementation of Recuperative Care Services: Lessons Learned (2024). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The purpose of this issue brief is to document what is working well with the implementation of the CalAIM recuperative care service to date, what remains a challenge, action steps California should consider moving forward, and advice for other states looking to add a statewide Medicaid benefit for recuperative care. This issue brief is based on interviews with leadership and staff at eight recuperative care programs, as well as several hospitals and MCPs from across the state (see appendix for list of participants). These interviews took place between June and August 2023, and their feedback is presented in the sections below. More Details...

Medical Respite Programs and Managed Care Organizations: Recommendations for Collaboration and Sustainability (2023). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This webinar provides an overview of Managed Care Organizations and their relationship to medical respite care. More Details...

Medical Respite Playbook: A Practical Guide for Managed Care Plans (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This guide was created in partnership with Kaiser Permanente and provides managed care plans with information about the philosophy and practice of medical respite care, program design, and offers suggestions on how managed care plans can most effectively partner with medical respite care programs. More Details...

Dissecting the Street Medicine Landscape Analysis with Street Medicine Leaders (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: On Aug. 31, 2023, we hosted an in-depth analysis and discussion of the recently published California Street Medicine Landscape Survey and Report. This first-of-its-kind study looks at the scope of street medicine practice across the state of California and how street medicine should be scaled to meet the growing need of people who are unsheltered. More Details...

Housing and the Medical Respite Care Program: A Practical Guide to Navigating the Homelessness Response System (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Medical respite care (MRC) is an essential part of the health care and homelessness response system’s continuum for unhoused community members. Medical respite care is defined as acute and post-acute care for people experiencing homelessness who are too ill or frail to recover from a physical illness or injury on the streets, but who are not ill enough to be in a hospital. While programs vary in size and structure, they are all guided by the Standards for Medical Respite Care Programs (the Standards) and share the same fundamental element: short-term residential care that allows people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to rest, recover, and heal in a safe environment while accessing medical care and other supportive services. Within the Standards, Standard 5 states, “Medical respite program assists in health care coordination, provides wraparound services, and facilitates access to comprehensive support services.” Additionally, Standard 6 states, “Medical respite program facilitates safe and appropriate care transitions out of medical respite care.” Unfortunately, there are challenges in meeting and exceeding these two standards due to a significant lack of affordable housing that meets the needs of various community members within the United States (US), and the complexity of the homelessness response system and housing process to access available housing. In response to this challenge, the National Institute for Medical Respite Care (NIMRC) has developed this guide to support medical respite care programs with: Foundation information surrounding the Homelessness Response System (HRS) and Hounsing and Sociall Service Discharge Resources. More Details...

Health Centers and Syringe Services Programs (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Our new resource emphasizes HRSA policy allowing health centers to participate in SSPs, outlines models of care, and provides best practices and resources for moving forward to provide health center patients access to syringes. More Details...

Consumer Engagement Assessment Tool (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: This assessment tool will aid health centers in evaluating their efforts to invite, facilitate, and support consumer input and leadership in the governance of their organizations. For Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) programs within larger FQHC funding structures or public entities, accurate responses to questions about organizational governance and administrative activities may require input from both organizational leadership and HCH program directors. The purpose of these questions is to evaluate how people with lived experience of homelessness are invited into governance, even for programs that are not HCH standalones. More Details...

Healing Hands: Intersections of Homelessness and Human Trafficking in the United States (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The latest issue of Healing Hands, the publication curated by and for our HCH Clinicians’ Network, is designed to deepen clinicians’ and other health care providers’ understanding of the intersections between homelessness and human trafficking in the U.S. More Details...

A Framework for Medical Respite Care (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: Medical respite care is defined as acute and post-acute care for people experiencing homelessness who are too ill or frail to recover from a physical illness or injury on the streets or in shelter, but who are not ill enough to be in a hospital. While programs vary in size and structure, they all share the same fundamental elements: short-term residential care that allows people experiencing homelessness the opportunity to rest, recover, and heal in a safe environment while accessing medical care and other supportive services. Medical respite care (also referred to as recuperative care) has grown substantially since its inception in the 1980’s, as more communities are recognizing the need for programs that address gaps in affordable housing and health care. As the field grows, so does the need for resources for programs and providers to ensure the clients* who access medical respite services are receiving safe and quality care. More Details...

Community-Centered Approaches to Racial and Social Justice: Change from the Outside In With CCHH (2023). Resource Type: Archived Webinar. Description: This was a two-part webinar series in partnership with the Prevention Institute, with part one exploring the CCHH model and part two diving into operationalizing a community-centered approach. This was our Second session in the series. More Details...

Study Shows Involuntary Displacement of People Experiencing Homelessness May Cause Significant Spikes in Mortality, Overdoses and Hospitalizations (2023). Resource Type: Publication. Description: The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study that shows encampment sweeps, bans, move-along orders and cleanups that forcibly relocate individuals away from essential services will lead to substantial increases in overdose deaths, hospitalizations and life-threatening infections as well as hinder access to medications for opioid use disorder (along with other detrimental impacts). More Details...