Since the fall of 2011, CSH and United Homeless Health Care Partners have provided a quarterly training series for housing developers and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in Los Angeles around integrating Health Care and supportive housing, based on our guide, Integrating FQHC Health Care Services with Permanent Supportive Housing in Los Angeles. The workshops aim to create a common language and understanding regarding business operations among both supportive housing developers and FQHC’s, to explain how financing works for both sectors, to define the needs of target populations and the services required to meet this need in health care, mental health care and substance abuse services.
Participants included a team from Garvey Court, a 69-unit apartment and mixed-use project which focuses on improving the health and health care for El Monte seniors in the San Gabriel Valley. Garvey Court, which opened in February, provides on-site health services and a focus on wellness and is expected to decrease hospital visits for residents and others in the community and reduce the demand on the county health care system. The Cleaver Family Wellness Clinic, an FQHC, will open a new satellite site at Garvey Court in July, with services to the public 20 hours a week. The Church of Our Saviour Center, a nonsectarian, community outreach organization, opened the Cleaver Family Wellness Clinic in 1999, and serves between 3,500 to 4,000 patients per year.
Other teams in the workshops have focused on scattered site units for frequent users, along the lines of the FUSE model.
