Health care for homeless individuals – Jessie Gaeta
October 7, 2020
As a leader of a large homeless health program, I’ve coordinated our responses to the overdose crisis and COVID pandemic among people experiencing homelessness. I grapple with how to build trust with individuals we meet through street outreach—people who often have significant experiences of trauma, discrimination, and unmet health care needs. While some unique programming helps to reach them—a mobile addiction care van, for example—there are many with serious health conditions who feel unwelcome in hospital settings. How could hospitals serve and empower them, build relationships with them, and identify and engage those not being reached at all?