Communities with big homeless populations are increasingly turning to a strategy known as housing first. The idea: helping chronically homeless people to find a permanent home—and stay in it—is the best way to help them lead stable, healthy lives.
The approach has been used in cities like Chicago and Cleveland, as well as in several states, such as Massachusetts, Minnesota and Washington, as local nonprofits have worked to provide both housing and health care to homeless people.
And it got an important endorsement in June, when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) told state Medicaid offices around the country that Medicaid dollars, usually reserved for clinical services and medications, could be used to help chronically homeless people and others with long-term disabilities to find and maintain permanent housing.
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