History

Healthcare for the Homeless – Houston started as a tiny 2-exam room clinic and a 1-room dental clinic at SEARCH.  In the first year, we served fewer than 2,000 people. Since then, growth has been substantial, with a more than a 4-fold increase in total clients served since we opened in 2001.



But the underpinnings of the organization began much earlier in 1984, when founder, Dr. David Buck, began volunteering with homeless people with Mother Teresa after college. He then attended Baylor College of Medicine, and while a student, he continued to volunteer for organizations serving homeless people.

Then in 1997, he was recruited back to Baylor to establish an urban, underserved track in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, but he said he would only do it if he could work with the homeless. He became the Medical Director at SEARCH where he surveyed leading homeless programs in the United States, including those in Houston, and found a general lack of a coordinated effort between organizations and a severely limited access to healthcare among homeless people. The following timeline shows key steps in HHH’s growth:

• 1998: Frances Isbell was hired to begin developing working relationships with community-based service agencies for the homeless, along with public and private referral agencies, and to begin to establish HHH as a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

• May, 1999: a large number of area service agencies for the homeless formed a consortium of agencies and healthcare providers dedicated to the provision of comprehensive, coordinated healthcare for the homeless. This consortium, including homeless ombudsmen, serve today as the Advisory Council of HHH.

• September, 2000: The initial meeting of the HHH Board of Directors was held, bylaws of the organization were adopted and officers of the Board elected.

• February, 2001: granted 501(c)(3) tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit corporation.

• 2002:  awarded Federally Qualified Health Center status by the Bureau of Primary Health Care, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• 2003: initiated a unique transportation project, Project Access, designed to provide bus transportation for homeless people to social and healthcare services in Houston

• 2007: opened Cathedral Clinic, in collaboration with Cathedral Health and Outreach Ministries. HHH’s Federally Qualified Health Center status was extended to this location in July 2007.

• March 2007: began collaborating with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department and the Mental Health Mental Retardation Authority (MHMRA) of Harris County to provide ‘inreach” for mentally ill, homeless inmates in the county Jails. The goal is to intervene with a treatment plan, prior to an inmate’s release, to help break the cycle by many who rotate through emergency departments, mental health systems and county jails.

• 2008: incorporated telepsychiatry into the clinical services at the SEARCH Clinic to enhance its level of psychiatric care and to provide on demand consultation with video conferencing capability in 90 minutes or less. The new technology shows considerable promise in treating homeless men and women, with significant cost benefits.