Preliminary data from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago ( AFC ) -led 'hospital-to-housing' program shows massive savings.
AFC presented information from the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership ( CHHP ) initiative at the National Housing and HIV/AIDS Summit in Baltimore. The effort, which identifies chronically ill homeless individuals and places them in permanent supportive housing, is the first of its kind in the nation. Chicago hopes to become a model for other cities with homelessness and other housing issues.
Preliminary data from the study showed nearly a $1 million dollar savings by housing chronically ill homeless individuals, according to AFC vice president for programs and partnerships and CHHP director Arturo Bendixen. Those housed used half the amount of nursing home days. They were also two times less likely to use the emergency room or be hospitalized.
The CHHP program spent $12,000 per client each year to house them. Less hospital visits and less nursing home days meant that the program paid for itself and saved money.
'The cost of housing was well off-set by cost savings,' Munar said. 'It's not only cost-effective, … but it's very doable. People can succeed in stable housing.'
Bendixen said that at the recent summit, the response to preliminary data was 'very positive.' The data is early, so there still a lot of detailed analysis yet to be done and released.
All individuals studied were chronically ill. Roughly 34 percent of those in the study had HIV/AIDS. Also, 86 percent dealt with long-term substance abuse and 46 percent suffered from mental illness.
The initiative was born out of a four-year research project started in 2003.
'Arturo [ Bendixen ] and others have been instrumental in recognizing how few options people have for stable housing after being in the E.R. or the hospital, and how very little data was available about what immediate actions to housing would mean both for their health outcomes and for the cost of care,' Munar said.
Research found that in 2006, one-third of patients at Cook County Hospital were homeless or at high risk of becoming homeless. The data presented at the summit comes from an 18-month research phase that used a randomized control trial design. CHHP is a permanent citywide collaboration that has provided 230 homeless individuals permanent housing subsidies so far.
Early data also shows that although there are issues unique to homeless individuals with HIV/AIDS, there are a lot of similarities between individuals with other chronic illnesses, Munar said.
'It has far-reaching implications for local, state and national levels for addressing the problem of homelessness,' Munar said.
AFC and its partners have done a lot of hard work letting individuals and policy makers know that stable housing equals health by sharing anecdotal stories. Bendixen and others hope that this data will give them further ammo by showing people that it's a great way to do the right thing while saving tax dollars.
'You can take the humanistic side and say that it's tough to be homeless, especially when you are homeless and sick,' Bendixen said. 'It's the human thing to do. This study will show that it's not only the human thing to do, but it's also the cost-effective thing to do.'