About Joe Rojas-Burke
Joe Rojas-Burke is AHCJ’s core topic leader on the social determinants of health, working to help journalists broaden the frame of health coverage to include factors such as education, income, neighborhood and social network. Send questions or suggestions to joe@healthjournalism.org or @rojasburke.
“For many patients, a prescription for housing or food is the most powerful one that a physician could write, with health effects far exceeding those of most medications.”
– from Housing as Health Care — New York’s Boundary-Crossing Experiment
Image by nouspique via flickr.
Housing First is a health care strategy based on the idea that secure, affordable housing is a necessary first step to care effectively for homeless people with chronic mental health and substance abuse problems. There is some evidence that this approach may, in some circumstances, even save taxpayers money (but probably not as much as is often claimed).
In a much-cited 2009 study in Seattle, researchers analyzed medical and law enforcement costs for 91 people given supportive housing and found that costs dropped to about half the level seen among 35 comparable homeless people on a waiting list.
Cities from coast to coast are ramping up efforts to provide housing as a health care solution. Reporters who keep an eye on this trend won’t be lacking for stories to pursue. There’s a lot of money at stake, for one thing. And, despite all the potential for helping people, it’s questionable whether all these projects will really save money, especially if they house more than just the heaviest repeat users of emergency rooms and jail cells. Other aspects of the Housing First model are bound to stir controversy (more on this below). Continue reading →
