Housing is Health
Care,
now what?
Presented by Ericker Phillips-Onaga, Sr. Deputy
Executive Director, Programs, Gale Alwill, Deputy
Director, Programs Project Hospitality
Housing is Health Care
Gratefully, this mantra, established through
years of CHAIN research, is accepted in 2012
Here is how Project Hospitality is
helping to get our clients there
Continuum of
housing care
that allows
each step in
the hierarchy
of needs to
be realized.
Realization of goals: stability
Increase in esteem, confidence, respect
of self
Connection to others, trust in
professional relationships, link to
family, social supports
Security of body, including health,
resources (entitlements)
Housing, Food, Clothing
Consistent access to care leads to
improved health outcomes.
Hallmarks of continuum

Recognition that our clients often come to
us still utilizing the same maladaptive
behavioral coping strategies that put them
at risk for HIV/AIDS.

Use of these coping strategies as the
starting point
Essential Programming
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HOPWA HPA partnered with Aids Institute
Enhanced Supportive Housing (ESH),
function as continuum entry point.
These programs assess the initial Who, What,
Where, When, and How.
Concrete tools needed to access housing
services are provided through HPA.
ESH enables clients through an ILS and
psychosocial focus to build proficiency around
addressing housing needs.
Essential programming
Emergency housing placement
(congregate and scatter site);
 Transitional congregate housing
placement;
 Several models of supported housing,
varying in intensity for dually and triply
diagnosed populations;
 HPA to facilitate independent housing
placements.

Critical Program characteristics:
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Flexible continuum of housing:
movement may not be linear
and/or progressive.
Acceptance of a client’s right to
choose
Focus on housing fit
Challenge clients to think broadly
about what housing may be best.
Educate them about their options.
Interdisciplinary approach
Long Term Planning
CHAIN study outcome: about
one-quarter of formerly
homeless persons who
secure housing return to
homelessness or unstable
housing within six months
of placement.
CHAIN study outcome:
clients who just started
getting housing help can
expect double the rate of
housing instability.
What does this mean
and what can we do?
Resolving housing issues
is a long term process.
Programs need to be
structured to make long
term commitments.
Intensive low threshold
engagement practices
earlier on to keep clients
linked and optimistic.
Service makes the difference—
How do we keep a client
connected to us?
Recognize that every
interaction plants a seed for
the next.
We need a client to “wrap
services around”.
When clients choose to limit
access to themselves we
respect the distance and use
other interdisciplinary tools to
engage them.
Tool Box

Low threshold peer engagement
through use of stipend funds

Low threshold staff engagement:
creative groups and individual
programming

Flexibility regarding what constitutes
a “session”
What’s helpful moving
forward:

Support for use of EBIs and EBPs that work. Needed to
provide teeth to the dictum: “provide service to clients”.

Priority given to development of housing continuums,
multiple points of access—not linear.
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Recognition that change is the clients option, and if chosen
will be a gradual process. Realistic discussions about the
barriers of housing our clients with maladaptive coping
strategies.

Models that assume clients enter system ready and willing
to address behaviors that placed them at risk should be put
to bed.