Hospitals are housing the homeless to improve community health outcomes, according to an article on the Hospitals & Health Networks website.
In one example, the two years before a homeless woman was placed in an apartment, three hospitals spent more than $750,000 on her care.
After she moved into her apartment, she only went to the hospital once for a couple of days. The other factors that were affecting her health were addressed by just getting her housing. She needed a place to sleep at night, a place to store her medicine and the security of a door to lock.
SBH Health System in the Bronx proactively reduced inpatient capacity, selling part of the campus to a developer to build low-income housing and opening an urgent care center and other outpatient facilities in the new development.
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