For clients who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, the key to achieving and maintaining health is stable, safe housing. And yet, in so many cases, the only place where the housing and healthcare systems intersect is in the homeless client’s experience.

We know that the individuals we encounter in a healthcare setting have a variety of challenges that impact their lives, and that the role of healthcare providers is to help them manage those challenges. Homelessness is one of the top-ranked social determinants of health identified by the NMCHIR as a barrier to health and quality of life.

Since 2018, the NMCHIR and the NW MI Coalition to End Homelessness (NWCEH) have been engaged in a process to better understand the needs of our homeless populations, the constraints and confusion that healthcare workers have shared about addressing homelessness, and how best to connect the healthcare and homelessness service systems to keep people from falling through the cracks.

This site is designed to share everything we’ve learned with communities that plan to undertake a similar process to better connect providers and support our most vulnerable neighbors.

For more information on this project contact Emily Llore, Director of Community Health Assessment and Improvement Planning for the NMCHIR, at [email protected].