Tracey Costikyan Alexander

SINCE 1985, CARE FOR THE HOMELESS (CFH) HAS MET THE MEDICAL, MENTAL, AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CARE NEEDS OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS IN NEW YORK CITY. We currently operate NYS licensed health care centers at 24 sites throughout Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens and have plans to open more throughout 2019 and 2020. Most of our service sites are co-located at facilities operated by other non-profits and include shelters for single adults and families as well as assessment centers and soup kitchens. Additionally, our community-based health center model brings services directly to neighborhoods where the need is most significant. Both models reduce barriers homeless New Yorkers regularly face in an increasingly complex health care system and increases access to high quality care. All services are always provided, regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. ALL SERVICES ARE ALWAYS PROVIDED, REGARDLESS OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S ABILITY TO PAY. In 2008, we launched our shelter services program with the opening of Susan’s Place. The 200-bed transitional shelter houses women who are mentally ill or medically frail, and is located in the Bronx. In 2019, we’re opening a second women’s shelter in Manhattan, where we will continue to help more women move out of shelter and into stable, permanent housing. In conjunction with our work in health care and shelter, we actively advocate for government policies aimed at the construction of more affordable housing and the creating of better health policy. Homelessness carries an ugly stigma. It is often viewed as a characteristic, something that cannot be altered, when it’s truly a condition. Conditions are treatable. Our accessible co-location and community-based health care models provide these essential treatments, working as a catalyst to break the cycle and alter the perceptions of homelessness.