First medicine: Supportive housing in Anchorage for elders now open
Congratulations to Providence Alaska for its brand-new supportive housing project, Q’et’en Qenq’a – Providence House. It has the potential to be a game-changer in our community for people experiencing homelessness. Q’et’en Qenq’a means Elder’s House in the Dena’ina language.
Our most vulnerable neighbors will be better served the more we leverage health care resources and integrate health care and homelessness responses.
“At Providence Alaska, we know and our community partners know that housing is often the first medicine,” Providence Chief Executive Ella Goss said at the facility ribbon cutting in July. “Having a safe, warm, and stable place to live is essential to maintaining good physical and mental health.”
Q’et’en Qenq’a includes 45 permanent supportive housing studio apartments for individuals 55 and older who have been experiencing homelessness. Residents will be encouraged but not required to access on-site services provided by Southcentral Foundation. With permanent supportive housing vouchers in hand, Providence is able to offer these apartments and connections to services from peer support to primary care to group therapy for free for those accepted into the program. It also includes six recuperative care units serving individuals who have been homeless and who need a healing place after they’ve been discharged from the hospital. They will have access to all services as well as follow-up health care services.
Healthcare and systems integration leaders with the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness recently met with Providence leadership on how to mesh the new facility with the Anchorage homelessness response system and Coordinated Entry enrollment. Through the latter, people are prioritized for housing and services according to disability, age and how long they’ve experienced homelessness. It results in a prioritized, by-name list of community members experiencing homelessness and better coordination of services.
“Those conversations highlighted the need for time-sensitive Coordinated Entry to be integrated into discharge planning from the hospital,” said Ziona Brownlow, ACEH healthcare integration director.
As it is, people are sometimes discharged from hospitals into homelessness, with predictably poor results. The hope is that people’s housing status is considered from the moment they enter the hospital, Brownlow said, and that those who are most vulnerable get a spot to recover at Q’et’en Qenq’a.