St. Louis hospital partnerships reflect impact of Healthy Housing Initiative

February 11, 2022

Since the advent of the Healthy Housing Initiative (HHI) in January 2020, a primary objective of the pilots has been to identify and engage local Catholic health system hospitals in partnership. The participation of these health systems in addressing the primary care and behavioral health needs of HHI clients is critical to meeting HHI’s goals of reducing chronic homelessness and decreasing emergency room/hospital utilization.

St. Louis has taken up this challenge head-on, not only engaging Catholic health systems but other private systems, as well, resulting in tangible and quantifiable benefits to those assisted.

In February 2021, HHI entered into partnerships with three major hospital systems: Mercy Hospital St. Louis, SSM Health Saint Louis University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Since then, HHI lead agency St. Patrick Center has received more than 388 referrals from the hospitals and served 313 individuals with housing coordination, meeting basic needs, diversion
and coordinating services.

Those assisted include:

128 super utilizers (individuals who have had more than six emergency room visits over the past six months or more than 11 ER visits in the past 12 months);
89 high utilizers (individuals who have had three to five ER visits over the past six months or six to 10 ER visits over the past 12 months); and
62 individuals who were identified as chronically homeless.

These partnerships have aided not only the chronically homeless but other housing-insecure individuals, as well. The St. Patrick’s HHI team meets monthly with these hospital partners to discuss data, outcomes and improvements. The involvement of the hospital systems has led to the broader engagement of other community partners, resulting in a level of coordinated services for impacted clients heretofore unseen. These partnerships have also been helpful in a new collaboration with United Healthcare to house 10 of their housing-insecure Medicaid-eligible patients, further expanding the impact of the HHI.

For more information on the full breadth of CCSTL’s programs and services,
please visit www.ccstl.org.