Interfaith House offers after-hospital care, refuge for homeless

A Chicago program gives recuperative care to homeless patients after hospital discharge but doesn't release them until they have somewhere to go.

By Sher Watts, AMNews staff. Aug. 4, 2003.

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When most patients leave the hospital, they go home. When homeless patients are discharged, there's usually nowhere for them to go but back on the street.

But in Chicago, homeless patients can go to Interfaith House, a 64-bed recuperative care center for homeless patients recovering from an acute illness or injury.

"If they don't get in here, they try to recover on the street, which is impossible," said Executive Director Michael Cook.

Interfaith House started in 1994 as an offshoot of the Chicago Interfaith Council for the Homeless. The center took over an empty nursing home on Chicago's West Side.

"The No. 1 cause of referral to Interfaith House is trauma," said internist Bruce Doblin, MD, medical director of Interfaith House since its inception. "They'll be sleeping somewhere and get run over by a car, or they'll get jumped and robbed."

While an emergency department can stitch patients up, it takes a visit to Interfaith House to deal with other problems, such as substance abuse, hypertension and diabetes, Dr. Doblin said. "We take a holistic view here."

When a patient comes to the center, the referring hospital is asked to provide a 30-day supply of needed medication. Then the patients see Interfaith staff.

Each patient at Interfaith House gets care from an on-site physician or nurse practitioner. Its health clinic, with three exam rooms, is staffed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week.