The Health & Housing Consortium is a collaborative network of healthcare, housing, homeless and social services organizations, and government partners with the shared goal of improving health equity and housing stability. The Consortium does this by fostering cross-sector relationships, informing policy, and building the capacity of frontline workers and direct service providers to support people with unmet health and housing needs.

In 2017, leadership from the NYU Langone Health Community Service Plan and NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn collaborated with leaders of the Bronx Health & Housing Consortium (Bronx Consortium) to conduct an assessment of the community health and housing needs of Sunset Park and neighboring areas in Southwest Brooklyn. The result of this work was the creation of the Brooklyn Health & Housing Consortium (Brooklyn Consortium), which was modeled after the Bronx Consortium, and funded by NYU Langone Health’s Community Service Plan.

Led by Amy Freeman, PhD, MPH, the Brooklyn Consortium formed a Steering Committee that included 13 stakeholders across sectors and developed strong partnerships with community-based organizations, housing providers, street outreach, and hospitals throughout Brooklyn. The Bronx and Brooklyn Consortia worked closely together to identify and address challenges faced by individuals and direct service providers in both boroughs. Between 2018 and 2022, the Consortia collectively organized 62 events with more than 6,800 attendees.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as activities transitioned online, the Bronx and Brooklyn Consortia combined efforts to improve access to information for direct service providers across the city through webinars with a range of NYC government agency representatives and other experts. In 2023, following a strategic planning process, the work of the Bronx and Brooklyn Consortia was merged into a single Health & Housing Consortium, which continues to be supported by NYU Langone Health’s Community Service Plan. With a new city-wide focus, the Steering Committees of both Consortia were combined to create the Program and Policy Committee (PPC). See current members of the PPC Committee here.

Partnered Work

The Health & Housing Consortium fosters cross-sector relationships, informs policy, and builds the capacity of frontline workers to support people with unmet health and housing needs. Examples of this work are highlighted below:

Trainings and Cross-Sector Collaboration

The Consortium provides direct service providers with education and resources to improve the quality of client and patient care, bringing people together across sectors to break down barriers and improve care coordination across housing, homeless and social services, government agencies, and healthcare providers.

Cross-Sector Trainings

The Consortium hosts in-person and virtual trainings for direct services staff on topics related primarily to homelessness prevention for clients and patients, led by training partners at the Legal Aid Society, Legal Health New York Legal Assistance Groups, Breaking Ground, among others. Training topics have included new rent laws and housing court proceedings, rental assistance, shelter rights, Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance programs (SSI/SSDI), and supporting the rights of undocumented patients and clients. See current offerings here.

Interagency Case Conferences

The Consortium sponsors interagency case conferences that bring together stakeholders from homeless outreach, supportive housing, and social services with hospital emergency department clinicians, inpatient social workers, and discharge planners. These bi-annual case conferences foster cross-sector relationships and allow participants to improve care coordination for housing-insecure clients. They are led by Casey Burke, Director of Supportive Housing at Bridging Access to Care.

Annual Convenings

Day-long Annual Convenings bring together professionals across the healthcare, housing, homeless and social services, and government sectors to showcase work that supports people with unmet health and housing needs across the City and State. At our 2023 Convening held at NYU Langone Health, 105 professionals representing 52 organizations learned from more than a dozen distinguished speakers about care for new arrivals, strengthening the human services workforce, peer-led mental health response, and community land trusts. Learn more about the Consortium Annual Convenings here.

Flipping the Script

Co-hosted with the Health x Housing Lab at NYU Langone Health, Flipping the Script events fill a gap in medical education on housing and homelessness, and re-envision how that education is provided. People with lived experience of homelessness teach healthcare students, trainees, and practitioners about how homelessness and housing insecurity affect health, and how better care can be provided. Learn more about Flipping the Script events here.

Advocacy and Research

The Consortium seeks to understand and elucidate the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness and unstable housing who also have complicated medical and behavioral health needs. Additionally, the Consortium champions policy and programmatic solutions to improve health equity and housing stability.

Medical Respite

Through research, education, and advocacy, the Consortium has elevated medical respite as a vital service for people experiencing homelessness who are too ill or frail to recover from a physical illness or injury while homeless, but not ill enough to be in a hospital. Due in large part to Consortium advocacy, New York State created a medical respite pilot and regulatory framework to expand the availability of medical respite. The Consortium formed a Medical Respite Task Force, organized a two-day Medical Respite Convening in 2022, and provided coordinated feedback on the state’s respite regulations in 2023. Learn more about the Consortium’s medical respite work here.

COVID-19 Response

Between 2020 and 2021, the Consortium organized 11 interactive town halls for more than 1,500 frontline and direct service staff, where they could learn from government agency representatives and health experts about guidance and updates to New York City’s COVID-19 pandemic response in relation to the homeless services and homelessness prevention systems. Town-hall topics included the eviction moratorium, substance use treatment, isolation hotels, mental health among the direct services workforce, food assistance, and medical care and vaccinations for individuals experiencing homelessness.
In April 2020, the Consortium submitted a Letter from Hospital Providers Regarding COVID-19 and Homelessness in New York City to government officials with signatures from 503 New York City health professionals, which received press coverage in Politico and VICE.

Cross-Sector Policy Recommendations

The Consortium offered recommendations included in United Hospital Fund’s (UHF) 2020 publication The Road Forward: Framework for a Population Health Approach to Health and Housing Partnerships , a project of the New York City Population Health Improvement Program (NYC PHIP). The Framework defined critical areas for cross-sector collaboration between the health and housing sectors in NYC. The Consortium was then featured as a model in a UHF commentary piece. The Consortium also provided recommendations to the 2021 New York City United for Housing Campaign, which defined a new affordable housing platform for the incoming mayoral administration, declared that housing is healthcare, and included hospital discharge policy recommendations.

Publications

The Development of Health and Housing Consortia in New York City. Amy L. Freeman, Bonnie Mohan, Henie Lustgarten, Deirdre Sekulic, Laura Shepard, Megan Fogarty, Sue A. Kaplan, and Kelly M. Doran. Health Affairs 2020 39:4, 631-638.
Health and Housing Consortia: Responding to COVID-19 Through Cross-Sector Learning and Collaboration. Bonnie Mohan, Amy L. Freeman, Kelly M. Doran. Health Affairs Blog, April 21, 2020.

Faculty and Staff

Amy Freeman, PhD, MPH, Research Associate Professor, Department of Population Health
Harmony Arcilla, MPH, CHES, Senior Project Coordinator, Health and Housing Initiatives, Department of Population Health
Sue A. Kaplan, JD, Director, NYU Langone Health Community Service Plan; Research Professor, Department of Population Health

Contact Us

Subscribe to the Health & Housing Consortium bi-weekly newsletter for timely information about events, news, resources, and announcements.
For inquiries, please contact Harmony.Arcilla@NYULangone.org.