Friday, November 22, 2024
11/22/2024
The Road to Health and Housing (R2H) Project of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) will serve 260 homeless adults over the age of 18 with serious mental illness (SMI) or co-occurring disorders (COD) experiencing homelessness in the city of Chicago. The goal of the R2H project is to increase the availability and ensure coordination of integrated behavioral health, primary health, housing, and supportive services to improve physical health, behavioral health, and housing stability for the population of focus. AFC will work with three project partners: All Chicago Making Homelessness History, Heartland Alliance Health (HAH), and Legal Council for Health Justice. Clients will be identified from Chicago’s Coordinated Entry System (CES), a city-wide system that assesses and connects homeless individuals to housing services. In particular, the proposed project will focus on supporting clients who are “matched” or have been identified for placement into permanent supportive housing. The R2H project will address the needs of clients through outreach, engagement, and clinical assessment provided by project Clinical Engagement Specialists, and evidence-based mental health and substance use treatment integrated with primary health care and mental health case management provided by HAH and. In addition, Clinical Engagement Specialists will provide ongoing housing system navigation to support clients with successful entry into stable housing, benefits assistance to connect clients to eligible public benefits, and re-engagement and retention services to ensure that clients are able to maintain health and behavioral health services. R2H services will be based on the evidence-based practices (EBPs) of motivational interviewing, harm reduction, trauma-informed care (including specific interventions Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model and Seeking Safety), Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment, and Assertive Community Treatment. The R2H Project will work in collaboration with Chicago’s existing housing and health community planning structure to establish and convene a project Advisory Council that will ensure system-level service coordination for R2H clients. R2H will accomplish its goal through three strategies: 1) increased access to mental health and substance use treatment and integrated primary care, 2) increased access to housing and support services to increase housing stability and self-sufficiency, and 3) increased systems-level integration between the Chicago homeless, health, and behavioral health systems. Each strategy is associated with specific objectives, including providing integrated mental health, substance use, and primary care services to 260 clients (40 in Years 1 and 5 and 60 per year in Years 2 – 4); providing housing system navigation to 260 clients; enrolling 80% of eligible clients in appropriate benefits programs; ensuring that 90% of clients complete an individualized treatment plan and 75% of clients continue to engage in care; and developing trauma-informed care training targeted to improve housing providers’ capacity to serve clients with SMI or COD.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
