Kaiser Permanente is investing $200 million to house Americans Efforts to combat the country?s homelessness crisis will get a financial boost from one of the country?s biggest healthcare providers?Kaiser Permanente is investing $200 million in affordable and supportive housing across the country.
The announcement was made last week by the Oakland, California-based nonprofit, which serves 12 million members in eight states and Washington, D.C. By focusing on making housing-based investments in those markets, the healthcare company estimates it will positively impact the well-being of 65 million U.S. residents.
The investment makes sense, as Kriston Capps argues at CityLab, because ?housing is healthcare.? Chronically unhoused residents can cost cities hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in emergency room visits and short-term care. This is why cities are focusing on new strategies to permanently house their most vulnerable residents, including integrating comprehensive healthcare services. Many of the communities Kaiser Permanente serves are also seeing the nation?s highest rates of housing insecurity and homelessness, including California, Washington, and Hawaii, noted Dr. Bechara Choucair, Kaiser Permanente?s chief community health officer, in a statement.
?As a family physician, I?ve provided medical care to the homeless, and have seen first-hand the impact that living without a home can have on someone?s health,? said Choucair. ?To improve the health of an e...