CEIH part­nered with Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work to bring togeth­er com­mit­ted stake­hold­ers who want to make a dif­fer­ence. The con­cerns about health expe­ri­ences and equi­ty issues were raised through our Urgent and Emer­gent Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work, with increas­ing emer­gency depart­ment pre­sen­ta­tions, poor health out­comes and chal­lenges for peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness in access­ing health­care. Indi­vid­u­als expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness often face high rates of co-mor­bidi­ties, ear­ly mor­tal­i­ty and lim­it­ed access to coor­di­nat­ed, per­son-cen­tred care.

Emer­gency depart­ments have become the default entry point to a sys­tem that isn’t designed to meet the needs of peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness. These vis­its are com­plex and often avoid­able, plac­ing pres­sure on already stretched ser­vices, increas­ing wait times, and lead­ing to poor­er out­comes for some of our most vul­ner­a­ble South Australians.

In response, CEIH launched a deep­er inquiry — cul­mi­nat­ing in the Home­less­ness to Health Design Work­shop. This event brought togeth­er over 60 stake­hold­ers from health, hous­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty sec­tors, includ­ing voic­es with lived expe­ri­ence, to col­lec­tive­ly iden­ti­fy what needs to change.

What We Heard

Key chal­lenges raised included:

• Bar­ri­ers to data shar­ing across dis­con­nect­ed systems
• Unco­or­di­nat­ed hos­pi­tal dis­charge process­es, leav­ing peo­ple with­out support
• Eli­gi­bil­i­ty mis­match­es between health, hous­ing and com­mu­ni­ty services
• Lim­it­ed after-hours and cri­sis response when sup­port is most needed
• Com­plex and con­fus­ing sys­tem nav­i­ga­tion for both clients and providers and chal­lenges with access to health­care includ­ing pri­ma­ry care, out­pa­tients and allied health
• Insuf­fi­cient sup­port for peo­ple with co-occur­ring men­tal health and sub­stance use issue
• A short­age of suit­able hous­ing, espe­cial­ly dur­ing and after hos­pi­tal stays
• The need to bet­ter sup­port and train staff to deliv­er trau­ma-informed, cul­tur­al­ly safe, and com­pas­sion­ate care

These insights will help shape a co-designed strat­e­gy to improve care for peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing home­less­ness — start­ing in met­ro­pol­i­tan Ade­laide, with the goal of broad­er impact across South Australia.

We’re active­ly part­ner­ing with stake­hold­ers across sec­tors to make this vision a real­i­ty. If you’re work­ing in this space and want to be part of the change — we’d love to connect.

Con­tact us: CEIHUrgentandEmergentCare@​sa.​gov.​au

👉 Read the work­shop report 

👉 Vis­it our project page

Let’s build a more con­nect­ed, com­pas­sion­ate sys­tem — from home­less­ness to health