Housing has been linked to preventing long-term health problems and promoting healthy, productive lives. It often determines who has access to transit, grocery stores that sell fresh produce, jobs that pay living wages, safe parks and good schools. We all want a quality, affordable home in a good neighborhood. But when our housing situation is unaffordable and unstable, chances to lead a healthy life shrink quickly.

Looming Crisis

As the gap between increasing housing costs and stagnant incomes widens, the end result is more people become homeless. The nation is facing one of the most severe affordable housing crises in history. Nowhere has been hit harder than Los Angeles, where a humanitarian tragedy is playing out in virtually every corner of the city. According to figures released by the Los Angeles Homeless Authority for the 2018 homeless count, 53,195 people are living on the streets in Los Angeles County.

Our Response

National Health Foundation, which operates facilities throughout Southern California that provide crisis and bridge housing, piloted one of the city’s first recuperative care programs in 2008, filling a gap by taking discharged homeless patients who still need medical attention, at a fraction of the cost of a hospital bed. As clients recover, case workers link them with transitional and permanent housing with supportive medical, substance abuse and behavioral health services.

Recuperative care is an integral part of the county’s comprehensive plan to end homelessness. In addition to offering a safe discharge option for hospitals, recuperative care sites can serve as alternative intake centers for the housing process, using the arrival of new homeless patients as an opportunity to link some of the most vulnerable to low-cost care and then to permanent housing and ongoing support.