Alliance Recognized for Housing and Technology Initiatives

Alliance Health and City of Raleigh Housing and Community Development have been recognized with an Innovation Award from the i2i Center for Integrative Health for their Bringing Neighbors Home program. The award recognizes the program’s integrative approach through partnership and innovation that demonstrates and addresses a multi-disciplinary focus.

Drawing upon their shared belief that housing is a health care intervention, Alliance and the City of Raleigh partnered on a pilot coupling street medicine pop-up events with housing assistance that provided 45 people immediate access to housing and stability. The pilot recognizes that people experiencing unsheltered homelessness often face complex health, behavioral, and systemic barriers that cannot be addressed through enforcement or clean-up efforts alone. It culminated in the decommissioning of a large encampment that moved all the residents there into housing and connected them to care management and health care services.

Alliance convened a series of street medicine pop up events that included medical and social interventions at the targeted encampment, bolstered by the UNC REACH clinic, WakeMed, and Advance Medical, which provided a mobile clinic that offered full medical screenings. A full meal was served at each event and peer support specialists and street outreach teams provided follow up engagement and housing navigation for very high-risk individuals who typically only access emergency care with medical professionals. By the time the camp was closed, all residents had been engaged almost everyone with a provider, needed medicines, emergency interventions, benefit counseling, and health education.

Program results are impressive. 90% of participants are no longer experiencing unsheltered homelessness, exceeding the 75-85% benchmark set by peer programs nationwide. Eight participants secured jobs, and several others have engaged in workforce readiness or benefits stabilization. Participants overall report improved physical health, reduced anxiety, and renewed motivation to address behavioral health needs.

“Ultimately, the pilot elevated the standard for what effective homelessness response looks like: coordinated, evidence-driven, human-centered, and accountable for outcomes,” said Ann Oshel, head of Community Health and Well-Being at Alliance. “This partnership beautifully illustrates the intersection of housing, homelessness and healthcare and the collaboration and innovation necessary to quickly move extremely vulnerable persons from the streets into housing.”

Also recognized with an i2i Innovation Award in the technology category was the Somethings program, a partnership between Alliance and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to expand support for teen mental health in the wake of Hurricane Helene.  The program provides support for teens through text and video calls after school and on weekends via the Somethings mental health platform. It aims to provide easy access to mental health services and can connect teens with peer mentors and refer them to therapists. Any teen across NC can download and use the Somethings app for free, regardless of insurance coverage.