Health Share collaborated with health and housing systems to study the potential addition of a housing benefit to existing Oregon Health Plan Medicaid coverage.
The Housing Benefit Pilot (HBP) launched in May 2022. Through this two-year project, we enrolled 505 individuals who were at risk of or currently experiencing homelessness. The program was designed to support individuals at vulnerable transition points in their lives by connecting them with community-based Housing Navigators as well as resources such as rental assistance and move-in support. Vulnerable transition times included leaving substance use residential care, reentering the community from the corrections system, and exiting the foster care system.
For more information about Oregon's new Health Related Social Needs (HRSN) benefits, which will include housing as of November 2024, please visit Health Share of Oregon | HRSN Benefits
“Housing insecurity can severely impact people’s health. It is hard to heal a wound infection when struggling to find a safe place to sleep at night. Health Share initiated this housing pilot to try to improve health outcomes and member experience through addressing critical social needs. For Medicaid to step into this space of aligning health and housing is truly transformational.”
“Being able to focus on my recovery and not having to worry about where I’m going to live or if I’m going to be able to lay my head down at night. That was a huge, huge support in regard to my sobriety and my recovery.”
“… I went from nothing to having something. Because when I moved in, I literally just came in with a suitcase with just a few clothing items and that's about it. The program provided everything I needed to start off with.”
“My biggest thought when I was in [the hospital] was ‘what was going to happen when I left? Where was I going to go?’ … And so to know that was taken care of, it just meant less stress, less worry, less being scared, less emotional chaos … I could actually breathe and focus on other things that I was dealing with at that time.”
Health Share is working with Providence's Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CORE) to evaluate this pilot, click here for a process overview. More information will be posted on this page as it becomes available.
