TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Helping those experiencing homelessness is taking a step beyond providing what they need in the moment to repairing the problems that got them there. El Rio Health received a $1.1 million grant from the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration to provide more behavioral health services.
El Rio Health already reaches out to the homeless where they live with medical teams. Adding behavioral health and substance abuse treatment is one more step to start changing how they live.
“This is very difficult, which is why this is a unique approach, and we’ll think it will work,” said Clinton Kuntz, DBH, El Rio Health CEO.
Kuntz described how to get those living in Pima County’s homeless population to commit to behavioral health and substance use disorder services. They already provide outreach with medical teams that visit those experiencing homelessness where they live.
“We’re going to take these services to where they’re at and get them engaged at that point,” Kuntz said.
That includes homeless shelters and respite care like Casa de Respiro. A federal $1.1 million grant will help pay for additional staff to provide these behavioral health services.
“Our goal is help these individuals to hopefully get them to engage where we can start them down that road to recovery and with that could come stable housing, and those next steps. Hopefully, we’ll get them maybe some job skills, then get them a job, then get them standing on their own two feet. So it’s a multi-step approach to get somebody to a long-term stabilization in their lives,” Kuntz said.
Providing these services is not unique, but some of the approaches of combining them could be, and this grant will be tracking how many receive help, its results, and could provide information for the future and for other cities.
“Depending on the outcomes of this, we’re hopeful that this funding could become long-term, and sustainable. We have to report a lot of data on this, outcomes, those types of things,” Kuntz said.
El Rio expects this should help a few hundred people and says the teams currently reaching out to the homeless contact as many as 13,000 individuals.
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