Monday, September 25, 2017
Recommendations and resources compiled from staff serving clients experiencing homelessness
What strategies successfully address the housing needs of people living with HIV who are experiencing homelessness? What does it take to keep people experiencing homelessness in HIV care?
Staff at nine clinics throughout the U.S. have been grappling with these questions over the past five years. They have been focusing on people living with HIV and experiencing homelessness, a group that often does not seek care or adhere to treatment. Finding housing was a key component of clinic staff’s activities. Now their experiences have been compiled into a toolkit. Over the course of two years, the Med-HEART project staff hosted a series of online forums with these nine sites about their work with clients to find housing and what has helped them make the housing search successful. Out of these conversations came the toolkit Finding Home: Tips and tools for guiding people living with HIV toward stable housing. The toolkit is designed to provide resources to health care organizations that work to increase access to stable and permanent housing for people who are homeless or unstably housed, living with HIV, and who may have persistent mental illness or substance use disorders. It is primarily intended for Ryan White providers, medical case managers, peers/community health workers, and other health care staff who provide direct services. Finding Home serves as a growing list of resources related to housing people living with HIV. Here you can find
- Ideas for creating partnerships with housing providers
- Tips for structuring a housing program as part of a medical home model
- Acuity tools, checklists, and sample documents for working with clients on the housing search
- Guides to help clients adjust to being housed and maintain daily living tasks