The health care homelessness connection

It is an honor to serve as a board member with Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA) where I chair the Public Policy Committee.  

Tim Thetford serves as Director of Public Policy for MDHA.  We are very fortunate to have such an experienced voice working for us in Dallas.  

On September 23, 2012, The Dallas Morning News published Tim's Op-Ed essay on the clear connection between the lack of affordable health care and homelessness.  

Here's what Tim had to say:

Homelessness is frequently and accurately attributed to unemployment and a lack of affordable housing. But there’s another significant factor forcing people onto the streets: lack of affordable health care. Catastrophic medical costs can lead to homelessness as well as preventable illnesses that cause some to lose their jobs because of failing health.

Access to health care is essential for the treatment of mental illness, addiction and chronic medical conditions. Each year, the number of families who become vulnerable to homelessness increases for lack of access to medical care. The rapidly rising cost of health care in America, which has outpaced income growth for two decades, is gradually putting health insurance out of reach for more and more Texans.

The U.S. has wrestled with the public policy and financing challenges related to health care accessibility for more than half a century. Affordable health care is an especially crucial issue here because 6 million Texans are uninsured. For the poorest of the poor — homeless individuals — the related suffering and high costs are immense.

Read the entire essay here.

The business case for ending homelessness

For a moment, forget the poorest of the poor.

Well, don't forget these folks, just shift your focus of concern for a moment from the human side of the challenge to the financial realities, to the costs of homelessness to any community.

As we continue working on providing additional housing units for the homeless, we realize just how essential it is to make the business case for eliminating homelessness from our community.

Homeless people cost us all a lot. And, many of these costs are unnecessary. The fact is, providing people decent, permanent housing is much more cost effective than allowing homeless folks to remain without housing.

Recently, we conducted a survey among residents who live in housing we provide. All who responded were homeless when they came to us. All are disabled.

Only 16% of those involved in our housing program took part in the survey. And while we will continue to gather data, what we collected in this initial survey provides a very clear "trend line" for our consideration.

We asked very simple questions:

1) In the year before you came into the Destination Home program how many times did you visit a hospital emergency room for any kind of treatment?

2) In the year before you came to the program, how many times were you admitted to the hospital?

3) How long had you lived in your Destination Home apartment?

4) Since you moved into the Destination Home program, how many times have you visited a hospital emergency room for any kind of treatment?

5) Since you moved into the Destination Home program, how many times have you been admitted to a hospital for any kind of treatment?

The results are extremely interesting.

Those who participated in the survey have been in the program for an average of 9 months. Their average age is 57.

In the year prior to coming our way, these folks report 17 ER visits at local hospitals. Since coming to our program, they report 1 such visit.

Likewise, in the year prior to coming to Destination Home, those surveyed reported 4 hospitalizations. Since coming to us, survey participants reported 1 hospitalization.

Clearly, permanent housing makes a big difference for the formerly homeless. But, it also makes a difference for the rest of us.

Ignoring the poor is not only heartless and immoral, it makes no sense whatsoever financially. Good public stewards will invest in wiping homelessness out.

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A hospital gown. . .

I serve on the board of directors at Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, the non-profit organization that operates our city's new homeless assistance center, The Bridge.

Last Thursday afternoon, I sat in a strategic planning committee session at The Bridge. We met in one of the new classrooms. One side of the room is almost all glass that provides a window onto the street just outside.

During our conversation, a woman walked down the sidewalk as she made her way to the front gate of the facility. She wore only a hospital patient gown with a matching outer robe, most likely just another bed gown creatively positioned to provide her at least a bit of modesty.

Identification and treatment wristbands still in place, she cradled a small box in her arms, no doubt containing some treasure she retrieved from her stay in the hospital.

What I saw on her person was likely all that she owned in the world.

I expect that she was dropped off at The Bridge by some health care provider who determined her stay was up. The chosen "after care plan" for her was a ride to our facility where she was gladly welcomed in.

Her passing reset the purpose of our meeting for me, rendering our detailed discussion of by-laws almost irrelevant, certainly comical.

At the same time, her life pressed on us a severe urgency that calls for the most extreme form of merciful compassion and community commitment.

As I watched her limp toward our door, I wondered how her story reads.

As I pondered her situation, it became very clear that the reasons and the details as to why she arrived in such a state just don't matter at all.

My sister has nothing but a hospital gown and a box of tissue.

What more do I need to understand?