Ashley Hamilton, program director of the ARCHES Project, shows Jones recently donated supplies that are currently stored in the building’s unused sobering center on May 7, 2020. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Kaiser Permanente has granted the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency $1.5 million to get people who have been chronically homeless into housing.
Marion and Polk counties are one of three communities across the country receiving funding from the health care provider for an initiative called Project HOME.
By the end of 2023, it aims to provide housing assistance to 100 people in the Salem area who have been chronically homeless.
The ARCHES Project, part of the community action agency, will work with Kaiser Permanente’s local medical teams to identify high-risk individuals and bring them into the program, a news release about the grant said.
In the release, Kaiser Permanente said it selected the local community action agency because of the rise of people experiencing chronic homelessness in the region, limited affordable housing and the agency’s readiness to implement the work.
Project HOME was created with the goal of helping people secure permanent housing, improve their mental and physical health, and help reduce their dependency on services such as emergency care and law enforcement to address their chronic conditions and daily needs.
The grant comes from Kaiser Permanente’s National Community Benefit Fund.
Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, said 64% of the people experiencing homelessness in Salem have been chronically homeless, meaning they’ve been homeless for at least a year. That’s almost double the national average, Jones said.
He said the program would be one of the largest homeless housing programs in Salem’s history.
“We’re proud to partner once again with Kaiser Permanente, to help identify the medically fragile among our homeless neighbors and help them connect to housing. We have lost far too many of our unsheltered to needless deaths the past two years. This project helps to connect our unhoused neighbors to a warm, safe place to call home, where they’ll be able to live with dignity and access the support they need to regain their health,” Jones said in a statement.
Jeff Collins, president of Kaiser Permanente Northwest, said housing was a key driver of health.
“As a health care organization, Kaiser Permanente recognizes that individuals who are homeless have a higher rate of hospital readmissions and emergency room visits while also suffering from poorer health outcomes and higher mortality rates,” he said in a statement.
-Saphara Harrell
