Who We Serve

Drive down almost any Houston street and you’ll see Houston’s homeless people -- wandering in a park, panhandling on a corner, or sleeping under a bridge. You can be sure that they have needs most of us take for granted, like food, shelter, and employment. But there’s another need you might not readily see.

Healthcare.

In the past few years, a “perfect storm” has developed for Houston’s impoverished, homeless population – a storm driven by three forces. The first force is the sheer number of homeless people. The latest study, from 2007, by the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, recorded over 10,000 homeless people at a single point in time, and over 32,000 over the course of a year.

But the actual numbers are certainly higher. The study doesn’t take into account approximately 1,000 homeless inmates in jail at any given time. And, because the study is over two years old, it doesn’t apply the effects of Hurricane Ike on the homeless population.

The second force is the high rate of uninsured individuals. In fact, Harris County has the highest rate of uninsured in the nation – 31.4%, or 1.1 million people (Harris County Healthcare Alliance). And in 2009, with the recession pushing unemployment past 8%, the rate of uninsured people is certainly higher as more workers
are laid off.

The third force is the myth that Medicaid covers all the health care for homeless, uninsured people. The reality is that Medicaid only pays for a very small percentage of the coverage and Texas is the 2nd most restrictive state in the country. So, one of the world’s most advanced medical centers remains largely unavailable to Houston’s most vulnerable residents

As a result, most of the burden for care falls squarely on Houston’s public healthcare system, specifically on emergency rooms where homeless, low-income, uninsured, injured and ill people seek help. But Houston emergency rooms were never designed to handle such a burden. The result is an inefficient and expensive process with the continuing cycle of seeking care in hospital emergency rooms adding up to a much higher cost -- about $50 million higher (Gateway to Care, Houston) -- than that of preventive or urgent care.