Charity provides homeless with healthcare

By: Chip Harsh

Posted: 5/1/08

Health Care for the Homeless, a Maryland non-profit organization, has its niche in Baltimore.

HCH began 23 years ago as part of a national demonstration project funded by the Robert Wood Grant Foundation. HCH provides heath care and housing for the homeless, including medical care, mental health, social services and addiction treatment to more than 5,000 people in Baltimore.

The homeless served by HCH earn wages below the poverty line and 80 percent lack health insurance.

The year that the center opened, HCH served 700 homeless people in Baltimore. This past year, 110 staff members served over 6,000 of the estimated 30,000 homeless residents in Baltimore.

They benefited from a wide range of services including medical services, mental health services, addiction treatment and HIV services.

"The organization is not interested in putting Band-Aids on people and putting them back on the street but actually making a difference," Vice President of External Affairs Kevin Lindamood said.

According to the HCH Web site, about 80 percent of the homeless in the program do not have health insurance and 50 percent suffer from treatable addiction, while 35 percent are diagnosed with a mental disease and 25 percent are "dually diagnosed."

"Homelessness is a symptom of the broader problem of poverty," Kevin Lindamood added. "And the homeless we see have more than one medical problem - addiction plus medical problems."

Social workers use multiple public and private state health programs for those without health care.

"We live in a nation that is virtually alone among our industrialized partners in not providing health care as a right," Kevin Lindamood expressed his opinion on the status of American national health care, "Someone can become bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills."

This August, Health Care for the Homeless is expected to break ground on a brand new building at the corner of Hillens and Falls Streets in downtown Baltimore.

The new building will allow for new services including Maryland's first dental program for homeless children and adults as well as a pediatric center for homeless children.

The new facility is expected to help an increased number of homeless when it opens in January 2010. The new building will also allow the social workers to help more homeless people get the help they need and find affordable long-term housing more proficiently.

Most benefactors of the organization are on 10-year plans that include permanent housing, a consistent job and affordable health care.

The Baltimore city project also funds four surrounding counties and directs Health Care for the Homeless projects throughout Maryland, eventually helping 9,000 homeless children and adults.

Health Care for the Homeless is consistently and persistently broadening and strengthening its programs.

For example, a pilot program serving 100 people, which started less than three years ago, is now government-funded to provide the homeless with housing immediately.

"Housing is not a reward but a human right," Kevin Lindamood said, "and that is why the program put folks directly in housing and then offered very intensive services. Participation in services was not a prerequisite for housing."

Health Care for the Homeless is tackling the homeless problem, not "managing" homelessness, according to Lindamood.

"For too long [the government] has looked at [homelessness] as the fault of an individual," Lindamood said.

Hopkins is rooted in the organization, as one of the founding board members was a Hopkins psychiatrist.

Although no students are currently involved in the charity, Health Care for the Homeless has had volunteers from Hopkins undergraduate and graduate schools, especially from psychology graduate student rotations.

Students interested in public health, social work or generally interested in improving Baltimore city first-hand can contact Health Care for the Homeless via their Web site, http://www.hshmd.org, or send an e-mail to: info@hchmd.org.