Skip to main content

NC Medicaid Behavioral Health and Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities Tailored Plans will launch July 1, 2024. Choice period ends on May 15, 2024. Please call to select your PCP. Find PCPs available in our health plan.

Effective February 1, 2024, citizens of Harnett County are being served by Alliance Health. Access more information for or for providers.

Website Search

Use the search function below to search AllianceHealthPlan.org

Filter content by audience:

Alliance News

Here are the latest updates on Alliance news and initiatives. You might also be interested in subscribing to our Alliance InTouch newsletter or our Provider Update Service.

Left Arrow Icon Back to News

08/08/2018

A foundation for recovery: Alliance housing investment paying off

(Durham, NC) – As part of Alliance Behavioral Healthcare’s commitment to “Housing First, Housing Plus,” the principle of supportive housing as a platform for improving quality of life and a foundation for recovery, the organization has been busy forging new partnerships and exploring more opportunities to move people with complex needs from homelessness to housing … and help them stay there.

Those efforts are now showing good returns in terms of retention, improved outcomes and fewer visits to the emergency department by people served. In addition, through an investment of almost $5 million, Alliance has secured current and future access to 69 housing units.

The capital investments with private and non-profit housing developers include $750,000 from Alliance reinvestment funds and $4.2 million from Department of Justice grants. The money has secured 69 housing units with 20-year deed restrictions specifying that they be used by Alliance or its designee.

The inventory includes 28 units in Wake County, some of which are senior housing, and 41 units in Durham. Some of the investments are in new construction developments, the first of which will open at the end of August with occupancy scheduled for September 1.

In addition to Alliance’s investment partnerships, good outcomes are emerging from other partnerships, including a Health and Housing Program with Duke Health Systems and Resources for Human Development (RHD), and Bridge Housing at Harrington Place in partnership with Wake County and RHD.

The Health and Housing program serves people who are chronically homeless referred through two Duke outpatient clinics, with feeder sources in the ED. Through RHD, Alliance connects these people with housing and the supportive services they need to stay in that housing and manage their health conditions.

The initiative began in February 2017 and has housed 13 people who were classified as chronically homeless. Six people have remained in housing for 9-15 months.
One remarkable result of the initiative is that data provided by RHD show a 75 percent reduction in ED visits by people housed through the program. One person who has been housed through the program for nine months had accounted for 11 ED visits before being housed. After her first three months of housing, she has not been back to the ED at all.

“The Health and Housing program really illustrates the intersect between physical health and behavioral health and how important that is,” said Alliance CEO Rob Robinson. “This program has so much potential to be successful because it originates out of the hospital and the Duke outpatient clinics, and the physicians there really understand social determinants and the importance of housing.”

“The thing with housing is that you plant a seed and you really have to cultivate it,” said Ann Oshel, Alliance Senior Vice President, Community Relations. “And it takes time.”

“We spent a year trying to figure out the process of how we would identify the people, get the funding for the supportive housing case management and get the vouchers, and we are really starting to literally and figuratively see it pay off with all the people who are in and maintaining housing and not going to the ED,” Oshel said. “We had a couple of people who had crisis episodes but that’s almost what we want—let us know you before you have an episode so we can get you to the right place and then get you back home.”

Keeping people who are chronically homeless in housing can be a challenge, however, and it’s one reason Oshel now talks of moving people out of homelessness into housing “and beyond.” After finding a sense of community in homelessness or institutional care, many people can find housing, and the responsibilities that go along with it, to be a lonely and difficult experience.

“We focus a lot on moving people out of homelessness and trying to find a roof over their head, and I’m starting to think that’s the easy part,” Oshel said. “Keeping people engaged in services, helping them make friends and figure out how to navigate transportation, all that stuff is hugely difficult, overwhelming and complicated.”

The Bridge Housing program at Harrington Place in Wake County offers people with disabilities just what the name implies: a bridge between homelessness and being housed by providing a room in a group living setting, with many supports, including a case manager and peer support specialist.

“For a lot of people that in-between step is really important just so they can take a baby step to being on their own, learn a little bit more about what it’s going to be like, and get a little bit more used to maintaining even a small room,” Oshel said. “It has built-in supports while you’re there, so there is someone to check on you, someone to help you get connected to benefits, and you get a chance to practice your skills like how to cook and do laundry. For people who are very sick, they get a chance to learn to care for their conditions.”

The Bridge Housing program opened in March and has served 17 people, six of whom have moved on to permanent housing with a voucher. The facility has 12 units, and participants typically stay three to five months in the program. The 17 people who have come through the program represent 1,422 months of homelessness.

“We’re just starting to see what kind of difference it makes to give people a landing spot between homelessness and looking for housing,” Oshel said.

Meanwhile, Oshel and her staff continue to explore possibilities and expand the ways Alliance can move people from homelessness into housing and help them thrive there. “We’ve always got some ideas that we’re looking for the next great partnership on. For the moment, what we are really trying to focus on is what it means to really support someone in housing. How do we know that it has improved their quality of life? I believe that it does, and I believe that for some it’s so scary and overwhelming that it’s easier to go back to they have always known than to give it long enough. From our end we need to make sure that we really recognize what it takes. That’s why I say ‘from homelessness to housing and beyond.’”

Alliance is a public behavioral health managed care organization, or MCO, with responsibility for the authorization of services for almost 440,000 Medicaid-eligible and uninsured individuals and a population of 1.8 million in Durham, Wake, Cumberland and Johnston counties.

Recent News