Tag Archives: homeless

Personal story inspires series on mental illness
among people experiencing homelessness

homeless tent camp

Photo by Graywalls via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0

San Diego-based inewsource investigative reporter Jennifer Bowman has tracked policymakers’ responses to the region’s rising count of people with mental illness experiencing homelessness and the often futile efforts of family members to secure court orders involuntarily committing them to a medical treatment facility.

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Libraries as a mental health haven?

Photo by Pixabay

Several years ago, I recall talking to a New York friend about how awestruck I was that my hometown library had put out a welcome mat, if you will, to homeless people. 

‘As long as you’re not a disruption, the librarians are cool with you being there. That would never happen in New York.’ I’d said that of the Central Arkansas Public Library’s main branch, one of my favorite haunts (especially now that I spend more time in my southern home than my northern one). 

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Housing as a prescription on the journey to well-being

Photo: Circle the CityA Circle the City Medical Respite Center patient interacts with a therapy dog. The center is a 50-bed facility serving ill and injured adults experiencing homelessness.

PHOENIX – Lack of housing is a significant health issue in the United States that is shortening the life expectancy of the nation’s growing homeless population.

“If you don’t have a house you’re at much greater risk of dying sooner,” said Stacey Millet, director of Health Impact Project during the Housing, Homelessness and Health session on April 13 at Health Journalism 2018. Continue reading

A Politico editor mines tech expertise for real-world tale

Arthur Allen’s piece, The ‘Frequent Flier’ Program That Grounded a Hospital’s Soaring Costs, ran recently as part of Politico’s What Works series. Allen leveraged his IT expertise to report out a broader piece on health information technology efforts in Texas.

Like many journalists in Washington, D.C., Arthur Allen knows his jargon.

As the editor for Politico’s eHealth, Allen is all too familiar with the trappings of Congress and the resulting litany of regulations and rules that follow any major health-related legislation, including a 2009 bill that aimed to encourage doctors and hospitals to invest in information technology. Continue reading

Signs of housing shortages in other cities evoke West Coast crisis

Photo: brian hefele via Flickr

The deadliest outbreak of hepatitis A in the country flaring in southern California stems from a confluence of factors, from a lack of affordable housing and accessible health care to a shortage of public restrooms. But could other cities across the country face a similar crisis?

In Washington, D.C., outdoor retailer REI recently launched a new flagship store in the eastern part of the nation’s capital. But just outside the store, in a gentrifying neighborhood about one mile north of the U.S. Capitol, a tent city has sprung up “along the underpasses squeezed between some of the newest money in town,” according to local columnist Petula Dvorak. Continue reading