LOS ANGELES — A government agency and a private health insurer are partnering to create a system of street doctors and clinics that will provide medical care to Los Angeles’ homeless population, including routine preventive medicine, officials announced Wednesday.
The goal is to allow homeless people to see their primary care physicians long-term, rather than sporadically through resource-limited street doctors who struggle to schedule follow-up appointments or ensure patients get their medications, said Dr. Sameer Amin, chief medical officer of LA Care Health Plan, a Los Angeles County agency that provides health insurance to low-income people.
Officials from LA Care Health Plan and Health Net, a U.S. health insurer, have said they will provide $90 million from the state over the next five years for the project.
LA County is the nation’s most populous county, with about 10 million people. More than 10% of all homeless people in the U.S. live in the county, according to a 2023 federal census.
The city of Los Angeles is home to more than 45,000 people, many of whom suffer from serious mental illness, drug addiction, or both. camps littered with garbage and where rows of rusty RVs line entire blocks. The spread of homelessness has had a cascading effect on drug overdose deaths, particularly from the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
The number of homeless people in the city of about 4 million, one of the nation’s largest, is roughly equal to the population of Palm Springs. Providers say they hope to help about 85,000 homeless people.
Of the money, $60 million will go toward strengthening the countywide field medicine program, providing services to residents living in camps, shelters or temporary housing. The rest of the money is earmarked for services on Skid Row, a notorious stretch of downtown Los Angeles with sprawling homeless encampments. It includes a new health campus expected to open in 2025.
“We have longer opening hours for specialist care and longer opening hours for more urgent services,” said Amin.
On Tuesday, a mobile health care team from Wesley Health Centers drove through Skid Row, past tents, tarps and people lying on blankets. The team offered HIV and STD testing, psychiatric services and referrals for other care, such as dental and vision care, said Marie McAfee, Wesley Health’s chief operating officer. She said they can see between 50 and 100 patients a day.
Norma Terrazas, 46, appreciates that the clinic comes to her. She had her blood pressure measured.
“This is Skid Row and we need help. We need all the help we can get,” she said. “They’re making sure that our health is good, that our bodies are strong, and that we can handle anything right now.”
Martha Santana-Chin of Health Net said she is excited about the possibility of more cardiology, orthopedic and other specialty care for people on Skid Row. Plans are in the works for free shuttles that would transport patients to facilities, since transportation is a major barrier to care.
The money comes from California Housing and Homelessness Incentive Programwhich Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to withhold $1 billion in 2022 from cities and counties, saying he was unimpressed with proposed plans to reduce homelessness. LA Care is providing 70% of the funding.
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Har reported from San Francisco.