Home is Where Your Health Is: Exploring Cross-Sector Partnerships that Care for the Chronically Homeless

Abstract

thesis examines the impact of housing-health partnerships on healthcare outcomes for individuals who are chronically homeless in the United States. Without housing, managing adverse health conditions becomes especially difficult, causing patients to cycle in and out of expensive services such as EMT services, Emergency Room and hospitalization services, and a variety of supportive social services. Many cities are working on innovative ways to manage and improve the health of those chronically homeless individuals by integrating housing programs with healthcare services. To understand how healthcare outcomes are affected by housing-health partnerships, this thesis examines seven such partnerships across the country. These relatively young partnerships were formed as a result of pilot projects, organic collaborations, or innovative funding pools. Health outcomes, cost, and quality of care are considered in assessing the effectiveness of the partnerships in improving healthcare outcomes. Because housing-health partnerships are still in nascent stages and efforts to measure outcomes have been inconsistent, substantial data has not been published offering a clear view of how these partnerships impact health outcomes. Nevertheless, available data does indicate that these partnerships have already improved quality of care and contained costs. With additional time, sustained efforts to collect health data and advancements in data sharing and collection will make further information on health outcomes to become available.