Essay on Healthcare for Homeless in California

Introduction

Provision of effective services like proper and adequate housing as well as health treatment is an important part of California's goal to eradicate homelessness by 2030. In the United States, California houses the largest number of homeless people, and this incessantly strains the healthcare resources of the state. Western religions advocate for followers to take care of the needy such as the homeless and the hungry. Homelessness in California is associated with factors such as behavioral health and social services. In California, homeless people receive health care services from clinics, emergency rooms and hospitals made for the poor. Arguably, it has been very difficult for the homeless people to receive health care services in California. The paper seeks to discuss what California is doing to ensure the homeless population has excellent healthcare.

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Foremost, voters in California passed Mental Health Services Act to provide houses for the homeless people with acute mental health disabilities. The above the law is very instrumental in enhancing mental health services because it helps in generation of billions of dollars. Whole Person Care is an initiative in California targeting homeless people vulnerable to mental health disorders. The initiative is concerned with the provision of healthcare services to homeless persons found in California State. Nevertheless, there are safe havens in the state that provide housing for homeless individuals with mental sickness. According to White, Ellis, and Simpson (2014), Whole Person Care program approach by California State is aimed at building infrastructure to reduce overutilization of healthcare resources as well as promoting health results for homeless people. The program improves how healthcare service is offered to homeless people with various health challenges. Ideally, the pilot program initiated by the California government is responsible for consolidating health services to people with mental health disorders. The states have also created a health kitty for addressing health challenges affecting homeless people. The federal government has provided funds to the state to increase health care programs aimed at improving healthcare services for the homeless person.

Buck, Brown, Mortensen, Riggs, and Franzini (2012) opines that Outreach teams have been created to help health officers identify sick people in homeless families. Homeless outreach team has partnered with the police department in California to strengthen their relationship with homeless people. The main aim of the team is to keep track of the health challenged people among the homeless population. Besides, the team has collaborated with law enforcement agencies in state regions such as orange county mental health to help them offer health services to the homeless population. Knowledgeable outreach officers relay essential information to the homeless population and advise them to seek medical services from health centers established by the state. Police officers work with clinical officers of mental health as part of the psychological emergency response team to respond to mental health calls from the homeless population. The police officers also patrol in destitute areas to establish the percentage of people living with mental health disorders. The government has trained psychological emergency response team officers to quickly identify and reach out homeless people who may be suffering from mental health complications. Arguably, the homeless outreach team has helped many individuals with mental health disorders to receive health care services.

The state has established residential placement to house homeless people with health problems. Homeless persons with mental disorders and physical challenges need proper living setting. California has veteran administration program that provides supervised housing to keep the mentally challenged homeless individuals. In this houses, the homeless people are taken care of by medical professionals. People with mental disabilities are relocated to the residential placement after treatment in the medical centers. Personal care home program is very active in addressing the issue of physically challenged homeless people. Edidin, Ganim, Hunter and Karnik (2012) asserts that the program is licensed to take care of homeless people with mental retardation and mental illness after they are discharged from Veteran Administration medical center. The program is designed to provide health care services to homeless people who require nursing and medical care. The mentally ill homeless population needs proper housing to ensure that they timely and efficiently receive treatment as needed. Housing arrangement has been done in other cities like New York and San Francisco to assist the homeless, sick people. For instance, model programs like fountain house found in New York treat and house homeless mentally ill individuals. The program has posted a challenge to California State which is in the process of implementing similar programs to improve the healthcare of homeless persons. New York City has public programs like New York state office that deals with the mental health care of homeless individuals. The state office has several beds to accommodate mentally ill homeless people.

California has established rehabilitation programs to treat mental problems of homeless people. Chrystal, Glover, Young, Whelan, Austin, Johnson and Kim (2015) argues that psychological rehabilitation programs are essential in a country because it enables mentally ill persons to work at their full capacity in the society. Rehabilitation programs when practiced in homeless areas deter people from showing severe mental problems. The rehabilitation programs have been brought into residential areas by the government of California to reduce the prevalence of mental illness among the homeless population. Moreover, the programs are essential since it assists the homeless mentally sick people to regain lost skills in their daily activities such as cleaning and personal hygiene. Community support program in numerous cities in California has improved the hygienic conditions of mentally ill people among the homeless population. The rehabilitation centers train homeless people with mental disorders to show high standards of hygiene as well as visiting health centers for treatment. The same program is found in Phoenix where chronic mentally ill homeless individuals are taught how to live with the mental health challenges independently.

Ultimately, California has established health care services in day programs where homeless people with physical disability and mental disorders will receive health care assistance. Day programs like St. Francis House in Boston are referred to as the shopping mall of all services needed by homeless people. In the building, mentally ill homeless people received guidance and vocational training to help them improve their livelihoods. Besides, day programs offered service such as health clinics for sick, homeless persons. The daycare program services were provided by staff and trained officers paid by the state government of California. In Boston, another program is the Cardinal Medeiros Day Center attended by kit Clarke Senior House located in a church where the elderly homeless person gets food as well as a medical checkup. The food was distributed by a van with a nurse to conduct diagnosis to homeless people. The nurse freely assesses the health of the homeless people after which he refers anyone to big hospitals for specialized treatment.

Conclusion

To conclude, California State initiated many programs that consequently improved the welfare and health of homeless individuals. The programs targeted the homeless people because they did not receive fair treatment in health centers like other people. They addressed the problems that prevented physically and mentally challenged homeless people from enjoying health care service provided by the government of California.

References

Buck, D. S., Brown, C. A., Mortensen, K., Riggs, J. W., & Franzini, L. (2012). Comparing homeless and domiciled patients' utilization of the Harris County, Texas Public Hospital System. Journal of health care for the poor and underserved, 23(4), 1660-1670.

Chrystal, J. G., Glover, D. L., Young, A. S., Whelan, F., Austin, E. L., Johnson, N. K. & Kim, T. A. (2015). Experience of primary care among homeless individuals with mental health conditions. PloS one, 10(2), e0117395.

Edidin, J. P., Ganim, Z., Hunter, S. J., & Karnik, N. S. (2012). The mental and physical health of homeless youth: a literature review. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 43(3), 354-375.

White, B. M., Ellis Jr, C., & Simpson, K. N. (2014). Preventable hospital admissions among the homeless in California: A retrospective analysis of care for ambulatory care sensitive conditions. BMC health services research, 14(1), 511.