Learn what works in health-housing collaboration
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Michelle Schneidermann, MD, Director, People-Centered Care
One of the most exciting CalAIM developments we’ve seen this year is the affordable housing developers turning to CalAIM to fund services for their residents, improving their health outcomes while freeing up resources to build more affordable housing. A new case study from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has more details on how one provider of permanent supportive housing, Jamboree Housing, is using CalAIM to lower staff-to-resident ratios, improve person-centered care, and working with a nonprofit hub that handles billing with their managed care plan partners. It’s CalAIM in action, and it's working. Read the full case study.
Highlights
Fact sheet series: What do the people served by CalAIM want and need?
The first two fact sheets in a CHCF fall series highlight the needs and priorities of people experiencing homelessness and people with behavioral health conditions, along with resources frontline providers can use to better understand and respond to these needs.
New report: How to braid Medi-Cal funds with other resources to provide more integrated care Three new case studies explore how organizations are braiding funding to comprehensively meet the needs of the people they serve, spotlighting organizations in the housing, independent living, and specialty behavioral health care sectors.
Health-Housing Initiative: Learn from teams across the state that built cross-sector partnerships
Discover key insights from the Partnerships for Action Collaborative, a two-year initiative that helped eight teams across the state build partnerships between health care and homelessness services.
Fact sheet series: How people served by CalAIM are experiencing the program
In June, CHCF published a major research project, In Their Own Words: What Californians with Multiple Health and Social Needs Say About Their Care, that sought to lift up the voices of the people CalAIM is trying to serve, highlighting their experiences of care — both what is working and what could be better.
This fall, CHCF will publish a series of fact sheets that focus on specific populations, starting with two this month — one featuring people experiencing homelessness and one on Californians with behavioral health conditions. For both groups, consistent and empathetic care remains a top priority, along with access to housing. As one 33-year-old Black man from Fresno put it: “It is different when you’ve got somebody that you can relate to compared to somebody that is just trying to teach you something that they reading out of a book or that they haven’t lived or something. Then, it is like he don’t judge you.”
The fact sheets also include a list of resources for CalAIM implementers, with concrete steps providers and policymakers can take to better understand each population’s needs and to improve service delivery. One resource is a step-by-step guide to developing a street medicine program, and another describes how organizations are employing people who have experienced homelessness.
Read the Listening to Californians with Complex Needs fact sheets:
Check out the full report:
New report: How to braid Medi-Cal funds with other resources to provide more integrated care
Many health care and social service organizations have begun braiding Medi‑Cal funding with other resources so they can serve more people, offer more comprehensive and integrated services, and build financial stability. Braiding can be particularly effective for supporting Medi‑Cal members with complex needs but must be carefully designed to ensure they meet funder and compliance requirements. A new Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) report focuses on braiding funding to sustain aging, disability, housing, and behavioral health services. It follows last year’s report on braiding funding to support person-centered care.
The new report profiles RH Community Builders, a Central Valley housing provider; Choice in Aging, a Bay Area adult day health care organization offering services to support independent living; and Children’s Institute, a specialty behavioral health care provider in Los Angeles County.
The three organizations identified the same benefits of braiding — from helping them serve anyone who walks in the door to allowing for seamless transitions between care providers. The report also highlights how these groups have managed some of the major challenges braiding presents, including:
- Overcoming administrative complexity related to contract requirements from different funders
- Getting authorization from managed care plans, especially for clients experiencing homelessness
Braiding Resources:
- Braiding Medi-Cal Funds to Sustain Aging, Disability, Housing, and Behavioral Health Services (Latest CHCS report)
- Braiding Medicaid Funds to Support Person Centered Care: Lessons from Medi-Cal (Advantages of braiding)
- Braiding Funding Streams to Provide More Person-Centered Care for People with Complex Health and Social Needs (CHCS September webinar recording)
Partnerships for Action: A look back at how teams across the state built new cross-sector partnerships
CalAIM implementers see it every day. People experiencing homelessness, who need help from both the health sector and the housing sector. The problem: Individual providers usually work in one or the other. So what’s the best way to reach out and partner with the other sector?
This has been the goal of the Partnerships for Action: California Health Care & Homelessness Learning Collaborative, a two-year initiative supported by CHCF and managed by the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS). It sought to improve cross-sector partnerships between health and social services.
The project brought together eight cross-sector teams in communities from around California to identify a challenge and work together to solve it. Earlier this year, CHCS collected what these groups learned and identified insights for effective cross-sector partnerships. A good place to start is this short video, which tells the story of one of these partnerships — a group of Orange County organizations that teamed up to more effectively move people from the street to permanent supportive housing.
See these resources, tailored to different roles:
- Seven insights for effective cross-sector partnerships
- How they did it: Stories of building cross-sector partnerships
- Strategies for managed care plans
- Strategies for street medicine and mobile clinic providers
Bookmark the landing page:
- Partnerships for Action: California Health Care & Homelessness Learning Collaborative
- From Streets to Stability: How Cross-Sector Partnerships Save Lives (short video on the Orange County housing partnership)
Other CalAIM Articles and Resources We Recommend
- Clarity Pro, a free tool from UC Law San Francisco, helps care teams identify the financial and legal planning needs of low-income older adult patients and caregivers — and connect them to the right supports. These tools are especially applicable to older people at risk of institutional long-term care or conservatorship.
- New Certification Offers Support, Credibility for Medical Respite Care Programs (CHCF)
This Federal Experiment Is Pouring Money into Mental Hospitals. Will It Work? (Tradeoffs) A look at inpatient psychiatric care and the “IMD Exclusion,” including an interview about BH-CONNECT with Medi-Cal director Tyler Sadwith.
- Community Health Workers, Promotores, and Representatives Lead Frontline Efforts When Crises Arise (CHCF)
- Newsom Promised Real Progress on Mental Health with CARE Court. Here’s What the Numbers Show (CalMatters)
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