Care For the Homeless

In a moving moment during his presentation to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council conference on Friday, Care for the Homeless (CFH) Consumer Advisory Board Chairman David Broxton told conference attendees from across the country, “Care for the Homeless saved my life!” He was one of several CFH clients to attend the conference in New Orleans last week, along with several hundred CFH staff and clinicians, providers, administrators, clients and advocates from across North America. Broxton speaking last year on WWRL. Broxton was homeless and residing in a shelter 12 years ago when he went to a CFH health clinic. After a successful career in appliance sales, including operating his own retail store in Brooklyn, Broxton suffered a series of health and family setbacks leading to drug addiction and homelessness. At the lowest point of his life, and suffering depression and “not caring much” what happened to him, Broxton saw a CFH clinician and received a cancer diagnosis...

Representatives from Care for the Homeless join hundreds of fellow leaders from around the country this week at the 2014 National Health Care for the Homeless Homeless Conference in New Orleans. This annual gathering features workshops and research presentations on successful programs from around the country. Several Care for the Homeless leaders are sharing presentations this week, including: Workshop Title: Improving Health Care Outcomes through Outreach, Engagement and Linkages to Care Presenters: Lesley Moody, Gillian Saunders, Gabrila Gonzalez Workshop: Integrated Care Model for Homeless Mothers with Depression: an Intervention in Family Shelter Clinics in NYC Presenters: Debbian Fletcher-Blake, Benigno Rodriguez, along with Linda Weinreb Workshop: Engaging Homeless Youth in Services Facilitator: Debbian Fletcher-Blake  Presidents' Breakfast -- Sustaining Employee Morale during Challenging Times Presenters: Bobby Watts, Jean Hochron and Nic Ap...

Four Care for the Homeless client leaders have been invited to attend the National Health Care for the Homeless Conference this week in New Orleans to present a workshop on our client advocacy work. The workshop will be called “Advocating for Ourselves.” David Broxton, one of the clients teaching the workshop said “Care for the Homeless does incredible work in providing life-saving health services to people who are homeless and in advocating for policies to fight, prevent and end homelessness. But I’ve learned in my involvement here that no one can advocate for homeless people as effectively as those of us who have lived this experience.” “We’ve had the opportunity to testify to City Council and the state legislature, to talk with policymakers and most important, through our Care for the Homeless Speakers’ Bureau, to meet and speak with interested New Yorkers about policy choices that helped cause the homelessness crisis and how better policies could end homelessness as we kno...

The automatic, across-the-board federal funding cuts that became known as “sequestration” took effect on March 1, 2013, cutting $85 billion from spending. Last week the Congress adopted a new “continuing resolution” to authorize fund the government through the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30, 2013. Homeless advocates had hoped that legislation would be an opportunity to restore some of the cuts in vital safety-net programs for homeless people and those at risk of homelessness. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. In fact, the new continuing funding law actually makes the cuts the “baseline” funding level for the impacted programs, meaning it may be that much harder to restore cuts in the next federal budget. Care for the Homeless consumers and staff recently visited with several New York City area members of Congress in Washington, D.C., to talk about the impact of the cuts. Our consumers explained there is a need for more, not less, services – especially in New York ...

Both a Care for the Homeless client, and one of its executive administrators, won major national posts with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council at their national conference in Washington, D.C., last week. Philip J. Malebranche, a client of Care for the Homeless who serves on our Customer Advisory Board, was elected to the National Consumer Advisory Board. The National Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) is made up of homeless and formerly homeless people from across the country who are involved in the governance of homeless health care programs, who are elected by consumers. The National CAB is a standing committee of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, with one CAB member serving as a voting member of the Council’s Board of Directors. Mr. Malebranche is a New York native and a graduate of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Washington, D.C. and in France, and has written on social issues. He also addressed a public rally at Union ...

Care for the Homeless Executive Director Bobby Watts brought more than 800 delegates to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council Conference in Washington, D.C., to their feet with a declaration that “Homelessness is evil, and we must end it.”  Watts, in the conference’s keynote address, said, “we have to stop accepting the unacceptable, tolerating the intolerable, and end the evil of homelessness.” “It was public policies that created modern day homelessness,” Watts said, “and we can end homelessness with better public and social policies.” Watts noted that “modern day homelessness” is only about 35 years old, and tracks with federal cutbacks in spending on affordable housing for very-low-income tenants and cutbacks to human service and safety net programs. Watts spoke about asking college classes what they thought the causes of homelessness were, and getting answers including individuals became homelessness because they had mental problems, significant health pr...

Care for the Homeless Executive Director Bobby Watts has been chosen to give the annual “Susan L. Neibacher Address”, which is the keynote speech of a breakfast plenary session of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council’s national conference on Thursday, March 14, at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill hotel in Washington, D.C. He will speak to several hundred health care administrators, clinicians and homeless advocates from across America about “Homelessness as a Public Health Epidemic." The speech is a particularly meaningful one for Watts because it is named for Susan L. Neibacher who was the founding Executive Director of Care for the Homeless in 1985. Not only was Neibacher an effective and inspirational organizer and administrator, she was also a mentor to Bobby Watts. In addition to being one of New York City’s oldest and largest providers of health care and human services to people experiencing homelessness, Care for the Homeless also operates a 200-bed s...