Homelessness to Health: Working together

Peo­ple who expe­ri­ence home­less­ness often end up in emer­gency depart­ments because of the chal­lenge of access­ing care in com­mu­ni­ty and fail­ures of sys­tem coor­di­na­tion and inte­gra­tion in respond­ing effec­tive­ly to their needs. 

This is the heart of CEIH’s ​“Home­less­ness to Health” work: con­nect­ing health, hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners to bet­ter under­stand what’s hap­pen­ing, and to devel­op solu­tions that make sup­port eas­i­er to access and strength­en inte­grat­ed responses.

Last year the CEIH pre­sent­ed at the SA Zero Home­less­ness Sum­mit we along­side the Ade­laide Pri­ma­ry Health Net­work and Depart­ment of Human Ser­vices. Togeth­er we shared how lived expe­ri­ence, health, hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners are help­ing to iden­ti­fy oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve outcomes. 

A col­lab­o­ra­tive path forward

One of those oppor­tu­ni­ties, with our part­ners at the Towards Home Alliance and emer­gency and hos­pi­tal avoid­ance staff at the Roy­al Ade­laide Hos­pi­tal, is estab­lish­ing a coor­di­nat­ed, cross-sec­tor response for peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness who fre­quent­ly attend the Emer­gency Department. 

Instead of repeat­ed cri­sis care, we are aim­ing for ear­li­er, more col­lab­o­ra­tive inter­ven­tions. By iden­ti­fy­ing indi­vid­u­als who are falling through the sys­tem and wrap­ping the right ser­vices around them, we can reduce avoid­able pre­sen­ta­tions. We would like to thank Dr Aman­da Stafford from Roy­al Perth Hos­pi­tal for shar­ing her expe­ri­ence and evi­dence which has helped inform our approach.

To sup­port inte­grat­ed respons­es across ser­vices, work is also under­way with part­ners to estab­lish a cross-sec­tor data shar­ing agree­ment to enable time­ly and appro­pri­ate infor­ma­tion sharing. 

Strength­en­ing the nation­al connection

At the nation­al lev­el, the CEIH has also for­malised a part­ner­ship with the Aus­tralian Alliance to End Home­less­ness, strength­en­ing South Australia’s con­nec­tion to nation­al, evi­dence-based reform efforts. As part of this part­ner­ship, ded­i­cat­ed lead­er­ship sup­port will con­tribute to advanc­ing the Aus­tralian Health, Hous­ing and Home­less­ness Network.