Called to Care is committed to ending homelessness in California. We can achieve this goal through community-led initiatives to build more affordable homes; protect low-income renters and advance racial equity and economic inclusion.
Estimates of the number of homeless and housing-insecure Californians vary, but it’s likely our state has more than 150,000 residents who lack homes—and many more threatened by housing insecurity. Even one person without a home is too many. As many as 20% of California households spend more than half of their incomes on housing costs—and that’s just not sustainable.
In the face of this crisis, California’s Catholic not-for-profit health systems are working with community partners across the state to help individuals and families find and hold onto an affordable place to call home.
Housing Is Health — and Health Is Housing
Housing instability is a social issue, an economic issue—and a health issue. People without housing are more likely to become acutely ill from a range of diseases. A lack of stable housing limits access to health care, which in turn leads to poor health outcomes. Good health requires stable housing—and access to housing helps reduce health disparities and health care costs.
Called to Care supports the approach of California’s safety net health care providers, many of which are Catholic health care sites, to addressing housing insecurity and other serious health and social challenges that underlie health inequity. These providers are uniquely positioned to serve as a hub for coordinating access to health and social services in their communities, especially for those who would otherwise lack access. They are helping to address housing insecurity by taking key steps, including:
- Addressing and Advocating for Housing as a Health Issue. Operating from the principle that housing is health and health is housing; recognizing the implications that come with unstable housing through a focus on prevention and early intervention; and advocating for policies and more effective systems to prevent and address chronic homelessness.
- Promoting Safe-Care Transitions for the Unhoused. Ensuring safe discharge for patients without reliable housing; and investing in recuperative care and permanent supportive housing initiatives.
- Building Partnerships and Capacity. Collaborating with participating local homeless Continuums of Care, community-based organizations, direct service providers and local government agencies to help secure long-term, stable housing; directly supporting housing solutions through financial support.
Creating Places to Call Home for Californians
Catholic health providers work at the state and local levels to make these services available. Examples include:
- Dignity Health Homeless Health Initiative—This statewide program coordinates health, mental health and wellness with housing and other social services. It helps fund emergency, interim and affordable housing—as well as prevent homelessness. For example, Dignity Health collaborates with Stocktonians Taking Action to Neutralize Drugs (STAND) and San Joaquin County Whole Person Care (WPC) to provide supportive housing and wraparound services for vulnerable individuals.
- Jamboree-Providence St. Joseph Partnership—Providence St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange County partners with local housing provider Jamboree to connect patients discharged from specialized psychiatric care with special needs housing. Patients benefit from a supportive housing model that includes wraparound services such as medication support, appointment scheduling, crisis counseling, clothing and referrals to other social services. Residents have weekly check-ins with Providence St. Joseph's behavioral health nursing staff who help residents build a pattern of consistent health care.
“Providence is a key partner in Jamboree’s Buena Esperanza development in the City of Anaheim, which is a supportive housing community and first of its kind project for the Innovative Motel Conversion Program. This collaborative work demonstrates how together, we can enact strategic and hyper-local responses to California’s housing crisis based on need. Beyond that, it shows how we are changing and improving lives… one person at a time.”
Cecilia Bustamante-Pixa
Community Health Investment Director, Providence Southern California Region
“Dignity Health’s Homeless Health Initiative grant program is an extension of our organization’s long-standing commitment to serving those most vulnerable among us, including the unhoused.”
Don Wiley
President and CEO, St. Joseph’s Medical Center, Stockton