Health and Housing Partnerships: Overview of Opportunities and Challenges for Health Centers

This paper describes the existing barriers health center grantees face as they target  services to frequent users of other health systems and link them with housing. Our description of the barriers is based on what CSH has learned through years of creating supportive housing, with references to a range of papers documenting our work, combined with information gleaned from a recently performed needs assessment survey answered by health center staff and conducted through a National Cooperative Agreement (NCA) with the federal Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). We believe it is important to articulate these issues so that over the next three years CSH can prioritize our work and measure progress as we improve health and housing coordination for the most vulnerable.