In 2021, Texas Health and Human Services awarded Integral Care $2,956,146 to support the Healthy Community Collaborative Program (HCC) for FY22. The full grant funding period is September 1, 2021 – August 31, 2023. This funding will enable Integral Care to continue and expand our work in the areas of crisis response and housing stabilization, as well as create new opportunities to reduce the inflow of individuals into homelessness. Integral Care will support clients who are unstably housed by providing diversion and prevention services, help connect individuals experiencing homelessness to housing, and offer supportive services to help individuals maintain housing while building their health and well-being.
Integral Care’s approach is informed by a 2020 Barbara Poppe and Associates report that analyzed the City of Austin’s investments in homelessness services. The report provided recommendations for using a systems approach to end homelessness, identifying four basic components of addressing unsheltered homelessness in our community: (1) reducing inflow, (2) crisis response, (3) housing stabilization, and (4) public space management. Our project design specifically addresses the first three recommendations, supporting existing HCC services while increasing capacity with a new Diversion/Prevention team, a Rapid Rehousing Plus team, additional peer support services, and expanded Mobile Medical Mental Health services.
This work will build on the successes of our initial HCC grant, awarded in 2015. Initiatives launched under the HCC grant include:
- Funding the local Continuum of Care to implement coordinated entry into housing
- Supporting peer recovery services for individuals in permanent supportive housing
- Operating an integrated health clinic at Community First! Village
- Supporting the Mobile Medical Mental Health Team in collaboration with Dell Medical School and CommUnityCare
- Opening Terrace at Oak Springs, the first single-site Housing First program in Central Texas, to provide permanent supportive housing to 50 formerly chronically homeless individuals.
Annually, the project will serve 700 unduplicated individuals and will provide services including supported housing skills training, peer support encounters, diversion/prevention support, Coordinated Assessments, and case management/service coordination.