Michigan's homeless face major barriers to healthcare. Here's how providers are trying to help.

A mobile diabetes clinic in Calgary brings comprehensive healthcare directly to people experiencing homelessness or low income at community health centers. The team provides services including foot care, retinal scans, blood and urine screening with immediate results, dietary counseling, and connections to housing and mental health programs. The "one-stop-shop" model eliminates the need for patients to travel to multiple appointments, ensuring they get the care they need.

Street medicine is breaking down barriers to healthcare access that unhoused individuals face. It brings healthcare directly to them, rather than expecting them to navigate the system on their own. This type of care emerged in Pittsburgh in 1992 and has since created a national network of 85 U.S. cities, 15 countries and five continents. Chicago Street Medicine, specifically, serves about 4,000 patients a year, with the help of its 600 volunteers.

The Drumodom program meets people experiencing homelessness where they are with a mobile doctor’s office as well as a retrofitted bus that offers showers, hygiene products, and hair cuts given by volunteers. The service is often clients’ only means of receiving medical care, and more than 1,200 people benefited from such care in the first nine months of 2024.

Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (HOME) program uses street psychiatry to get psychiatric medication to people experiencing homelessness in an effort to get them a step closer to housing. The HOME team has 223 full-time staff members and served 1,919 people last year, 22% of whom ended the year housed.

Insurance provider GreenShield, in collaboration with university insurance broker Studentcare, provides lifetime coverage of up to $10,000 for gender-affirming care procedures not covered by provincial health insurance. This insurance benefit provides care to more than 200,000 university students across 20 participating schools in the country.

The INN Between is a hospice center for people who are homeless, ensuring those who are terminally ill and unhoused don’t die alone or on the streets. The building first opened in 2015, providing palliative care, food, medication, a bed and community to those who need it most. Since opening, the center has supported 122 people through their final moments.

LGBTQ+ youth centers, like The Ruth Ellis Center, are working to provide a sense of community and access to necessary services to uplift local LGBTQ+ youth. The Ruth Ellis Center offers shelter to LGBTQ+ youth facing homelessness and serves about 1,200 people each year. Along with shelter, the Center also works to bridge the healthcare gap in the LGBTQ+ community by partnering with Henry Ford Health to provide general wellness visits, STI/HIV screening, contraceptives and gender-affirming care.

Street medicine teams bring medical care direct to people experiencing homelessness in encampments across the state. There are currently 25 teams operating in the state, providing medical care, food, hygiene products, empathy and support to those in need. Street medicine teams provide both emergency and routine primary care, establishing relationships and building trust with the patients they serve.

California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal, is piloting a program that covers rental move-in costs for low-income people in need, specifically those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The goal is to keep people out of expensive institutions, like emergency rooms, by providing services like housing assistance and healthy food. So far, 20 locals have received Medi-Cal’s housing move-in assistance.

The Michigan LGBTQ+ Elders Network (MiGen) works to provide aging LGBTQ+ adults with necessary healthcare, like long-term care facilities. The Network also offers culturally responsive training for adult care providers.