Creating value for communities: Los Angeles County's investment in Housing for Health

With U.S. healthcare expenditures leading and social service spending trailing other developed nations, patients, caregivers, and employers are insisting on improved value in health and healthcare for communities. Yet, health systems struggle to understand how to best invest existing funding or savings to reach these goals. We share the experience of Los Angeles County's health system that has invested in housing through their Housing for Health Program (HFH) to address the needs of high cost populations within communities. The approach rested on four key program strategies including having partnerships with various housing facilities, a whole person approach with broad community-based resources, a local footprint in community health services, and a robust jail and prison transitions program. HFH also relied on three key implementation strategies including having dynamic funding sources, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement. This case report describes these program and implementation strategies plus challenges and lessons learned navigating homeless individuals through the regulations of various funding contracts, maintaining service provider capacity, maintaining local culture in implementation, and persistent gaps in affordable housing availability. Future policies can incentivize similar efforts and infrastructure to transfer healthcare dollars into public services to improve housing and value for communities.