To “reach out and touch someone” who is chronically homeless requires more than a phone call, flyer or public service announcement. Successful outreach to “on-the-street” homeless people entails even more than outstationing clinicians in emergency shelters, and can extend beyond the reach of mobile medical vans. Providers of health care to unsheltered homeless people are demonstrating remarkable ingenuity in their efforts to reach this increasingly reclusive population, which in recent years has retreated farther and farther from easily accessible areas of inner cities. Some homeless people are compelled to leave as a consequence of urban renewal and NIMBY sentiment; others seek refuge from the gratuitous violence of youthful persecutors.
Categories:
Best Practices, Clinical Practice, Healing Hands Newsletter, Homeless Services, Outreach