Meghan Erskine: So, Catherine's Health Center is a nonprofit community health center. We serve mostly a low income population across Kent County and then we consider community as patient. What that means is that we try to meet the needs of the community and ensure that our efforts and our resources are going to the highest needs. And so, with housing being really unaffordable and with homelessness increasing, we knew that we had to provide healthcare in a different way. So, in the last three years, we've been bringing healthcare to shelters and churches and in places where the homeless community is already receiving services and trusted spaces. We call that place-based care. And what we learned is that it's a really effective model of care because we're delivering care without stigma, right time, right place. But we also had this dream and this vision for having a dedicated brick and mortar clinic for the homeless as well, so that we would have an integrated team that could go out into shelters and churches and do street medicine. But then we would have this other clinic that we would always be able to connect back to. So, Mel Trotter had a clinic that they built before COVID. And there were some really great partners that came in when we're able to provide some care in the evenings. But Mel Trotter knew that it wasn't being used optimally, meaning it wasn't open full time and they knew that there was a great need that wasn't being met. And so through a grant last summer, Catherine's was able to secure funding to put a full time team in that clinic. So it will be open to maltreater guests, but will also be open to the community. We think that we're probably going to see mostly individuals experiencing homelessness, but we also want, you know, the community in Heartside and downtown to feel like they have access as well. I think one of the key components of providing care to this population is ensuring that we call it frictional lists or seamless access. And so making walk-in appointments available, ensuring that we're still seeing people if they're late. There's a lot of challenges related to cost and transportation and stigma. So we just want to make it as easy as possible, low barriers possible for people to access the care that they need. We also know that healthcare doesn't exist in a vacuum. People, we want people to be housed, we want people to experience homelessness that is rare, brief, and one time only. And we also know to do that for people to be successful in securing housing, they have to have access to mental health services, they have to have access to healthcare services. So the connection between healthcare and homelessness is integral in understanding how we as a community can come together in solving homelessness.
David Limbaugh: What are some of the services that patients will be able to utilize with this partnership?
Meghan Erskine: Yeah, great question. So, we're going to have a full-time medical provider there. So she'll be there 40 hours a week. She is able to provide integrated substance use disorder treatment services. We see substance use disorder and treatment of substance use disorder as just a regular part of a primary care visit. And so she'll be able to provide convenience care, primary care, medical services like checkups and vaccines, but also services that are related to wound care and things that people might need support in more urgently. And then we're gonna have psychiatric services there one day a week. We are gonna have dental services there 16 hours a week. And then we also have a case manager. And a case manager is really important in connecting with other shelters and other organizations that serve the unhoused. We also want to partner with our hospitals. So Trinity, Corewell, U of M West, when they're seeing people who are experiencing homeless come into the emergency room or experiencing patient hospitalization, we wanna help connect those people to a medical home following that hospital visit. So really understanding how we can connect to Network 180 and the hospitals and connecting people to care after a hospital visit so that we can help reduce non urgent emergency room visits, reduce inpatient hospitalization by keeping people healthy and well.
David Limbaugh: We're seeing a lot of cuts being made and proposed to social programs at state and local levels. How great is the need in Kent County and West Michigan right now?
Meghan Erskine: Yeah, so recent numbers that I just saw from the Coalition to End Homelessness is that homelessness has increased. We thought it decreased recently earlier in the year, but we're seeing that number go up. We also know that homelessness isn't just living in places not meant for human inhabitation or shelters. So homelessness includes people who are doubled up, couch surfing, staying in their cars. So I think the need sometimes is not always reflected in the numbers that we see. And then in terms of what's going on with funding at the federal level, etc. It is going to be a huge need, meaning like access to health care, access to mental health services. In general, we know that there's going to be added work requirements for things like Medicaid and SNAP. And for a lot of people, they're already working or they're working kind of gig jobs or part-time jobs, and they really rely on Medicaid and SNAP just to meet their essential needs. So one of our concerns in the future, and a lot of this isn't happening until the end of 2026, but people who are already struggling may not have access to these really important programs. And so they're gonna have to make tough decisions about are they paying rent? Are they paying childcare bills? Are they buying food? And so having a clinic that will accept the uninsured and underinsured and Medicaid of course as well is gonna be really important in the future so that people have access to quality care. I think that's the other thing that we take pride in is we believe healthcare is a human right. And we don't just believe that healthcare is a human right. We believe that healthcare needs to be quality healthcare for everyone. So, having a place for people to go when they're uninsured, insured, whatever, we just want to make sure that we're offering the best care that we can given some of the changes that are coming.
David Limbaugh: Philanthropy certainly has its role to play as well, doesn't it?
Meghan Erskine: The Mell Trotter Clinic is really a result of partnership and collaboration. There was a group of philanthropists and partners who built the clinic and so for us to be able to come in in a beautiful space that's already been built and just start providing services right away. I think Mel Trotter and their funding community deserve a lot of credit. So just wanted to kind of point out that we can do really great things when we're when we're collaborating and partnering together. The other thing I want to mention is part of the funding that we received last year, we were able to purchase a street medicine van. So the Mel Trotter Clinic will sort of be this anchor hub for healthcare for the homeless. But we also know that not everyone's going to walk through the doors of the clinic. And so that van is going to go out into encampments and shelters and still offer place-based care so that we can connect those spokes to the hub. And we think that we'll really be able to ensure that no one falls through the cracks and we're not duplicating care.
David Limbaugh: Megan Erskine, CEO of Catherine's Health Center. Thank you so much for talking with me today.
Meghan Erskine: Yeah, thank you. Have a great rest of your day.
For a weekly dose of news right to your inbox, sign up for the WGVU newsletter.
