CFH garners National attention


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 Square Station in Washington, D.C., during the national conference, and met with a number of Congress members or their staff to discuss federal budget and policy issues affecting homeless people.

Also winning a national position was Debbian Fletcher-Blake, the Assistant Executive Director of Care for the Homeless. She will serve as Chairman-Elect of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council’s Clinician’s Network Steering Committee, and serve on the National Council’s Board of Directors. The Council represents clinics and health care organizations that provide services to homeless people across America, and provides advocacy, research, training and other resources to those agencies. The Council’s main office is in Nashville, Tennessee.

Debbian is a nurse practitioner and directly oversees CFH’s health care operations in our clinics and outreach centers located in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, and through street outreach operations. She has over 17 years of clinical and administrative experience. She joined Care for the Homeless with a background in chemistry and experience as a public health nurse. She also serves as an Adjunct Nursing Instructor and Preceptor for graduate and undergraduate nursing students.

Care for the Homeless is one of only a handful of health care for the homeless providers in the country to have more than one person sitting on the National Health Care for the Homeless Council Board of Directors. In addition to Debbian, CFH’s Executive Director, Bobby Watts, also sits on the Board.

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