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Health Care for the Homeless to expand services
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(Chris Ammann/Examiner)
Jeff Singer, the CEO of Health Care for the Homeless, sits in his office in front of a sign a patient had asked him to hold on to, as well as artwork from the center’s art club on his walls, on Monday. American health care, once the envy of the world, now seems more evocative of sloth and gluttony than covetousness — a condition of no small consequence to Baltimore’s estimated 3,000 homeless citizens. It’s a verdict that analysts as philosophically opposed as Jeffrey Singer, president of Baltimore City’s Health Care for the Homeless, and health care pundit Newt Gingrich can agree on: The American health care system is broken and may soon collapse. “We believe health care is a right, not a privilege,” Singer said, advocating government-subsidized universal health insurance as the solution. “When the people in the park have the same insurance as people on Park Avenue, then we’ll know that everyone has good health insurance — and it will be cheaper for everybody.” Gingrich, however, believes that third-party involvement — either government or managed care organizations — which insulates providers from consumers, is precisely what’s wrong with a system that now consumes more than 15 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (defense is 3 percent to 4 percent). But Singer is on the front lines of a battle that treats some 73,000 casualties per year across the city and four counties — for primary care, prescription drug, mental health, addiction and HIV matters — and it’s understandable that he favors guaranteed reinforcement. His $9.5 million, 130-employee nonprofit, Singer said, is Maryland’s only agency whose sole mission is to rehabilitate and reinstate the homeless — a service currently expanding in Baltimore and Harford counties. And the nonprofit will soon deploy a $2 million city grant to put and keep 100 homeless people in apartments, and is planning a new $15.5 million clinic on Hillen Street in 2009. “They helped me with my health problems,” said Donna May Bradley, a onetime homeless recipient of mental health and housing assistance who now volunteers with the organization. “They treat you with dignity and a lot of respect.” Singer, however, remains disheartened by figures that show 46 million Americans without health insurance; a top-ranking, per capita American health care cost of $6,000 per year for a national life expectancy that is 45th in the world; and radical cuts in new public housing funding. “We can help people get off the streets and stay off,” Singer said. “The problem is ... there are [economic] forces that continue to make people homeless — and at a faster rate than all the homeless services combined can deal with.” More information » Health Care for the Homeless 111 Park Ave., Baltimore 410-837-5533, hchmd.org |
