Matt Hurst, 52, a formerly homeless man who has lived on the streets for “10 years or more,” has always been “indifferent” when receiving services in the past.
It was an offer of dog food for his bull terrier, Minnie, from Health Care in Action’s street medicine team that broke through his wall of skepticism, he said.
“When they did that, it just opened me up.”
With repeated interactions with the team, trust was established and Hurst accepted the offer of services. Hurst and Minnie recently moved into their first one-bedroom apartment.
Hurst, along with other formerly homeless individuals, joined local and regional public officials on Thursday for the launch of CalOptima Health’s Street Medicine Program in a third Orange County city: Anaheim, which according to the count of homeless people in January there were 600 people. living on the streets.
The Street Medicine program is a partnership between CalOptima Health, the county’s publicly funded health care provider; the local city, in this case Anaheim; and Healthcare in Action, a nonprofit operation that provides medical, behavioral health, addiction, housing navigation and other services by meeting people where they are, on the streets.
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Healthcare in Action received a two-year, $2.5 million grant to fund the program.
One of his case managers guided Hurst through the process of obtaining a birth certificate and other documentation to help obtain housing and other services and he is receiving medical care and other supports, he said, to be successful.
“I’m still in awe,” Hurst said. “I’m in a place right now. I have everything I need for the place. I feel like a human being again, because I’ve been there for a decade and I didn’t even feel human after a while.”
And since overcoming his own resistance to accepting services, Hurst has convinced others who were on the streets with him to accept the help offered by the Street Medicine Team.
With its mobile medical van – a doctor’s office on wheels – the Street Medicine Team is designed to serve the homeless community in parks, under highways, behind buildings and other places where people are sheltering.
The program launched in Garden Grove in April 2023 and expanded to Costa Mesa in August.
“Our Street Medicine Program meets our homeless members wherever they are and brings ongoing primary and social care directly to them,” said Kelly Bruno-Nelson, executive director of CalOtima’s Medi-Cal/CalAIM initiative. “Access to primary care is an important outcome of the program, but at CalOptima Health we know there is no medicine more powerful than housing, which is why connecting these members to permanent housing is also a goal of the program.”
The Street Medicine Team had success, for example, making initial contacts with homeless people at the First Presbyterian Church in Garden Grove, known to many as the “shower church” for offering food and allowing people to shower.
“This is what we do,” said Diana Meier, Street Medicine programs manager at Healthcare in Action. “We always plan the day before, then we schedule appointments with members, whether medical or case management, and then the extra time we do fundraising.”
Homelessness is the defining issue impacting society today, said Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, and the top concern for residents and business owners.
“It’s a double tragedy that slowly destroys lives and at the same time affects neighborhoods like those around us,” Aitken said.
But simply treating individuals homeless due to their medical issues and leaving them on the streets “is not humane and is not sustainable,” she said.
“This is about primary care being the first important step to getting people off the streets,” Aitken said. “Street medicine may occur on our streets, but it is a path out of homelessness.”
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