The new clinic will be open two days a week and hopes to expand its services to five days a week.
OHRA said there is a huge need for behavioral health and physical health care among people dealing with homelessness.
La Clinica said the OHRA Center is typically one of their busiest sites.
OHRA’s Executive Director Cass Sinclair said, “as soon as they come through our door we’re looking to get them connected.”
La Clinica and OHRA have been working to build the healthcare clinic for the past year.
La Clinica said its mobile health care unit visited the OHRA Center regularly before it burned down in June.
It hopes the new clinic will help make up for the mobile unit’s absence.
La Clinica’s Community Partnership Director Ed Smith-Burns said, “we typically service probably about 30 people a month at that site so it is one of our busier sites, and without a mobile health clinic, we haven’t been able to provide those medical services.”
La Clinica said it wants to have tele-health services available at the OHRA Center in addition to the clinic.
OHRA said having a clinic on site will make a huge difference for the dozens of people that stay there.
“A lot of folks living outside do experience a lot more mental health stresses and so it’s wonderful and it’s really hard to get those folks connected a lot of times, in general, for all of us to get connected because it’s hard to get mental health services in Southern Oregon,” Sinclair said.
OHRA said getting people into permanent housing is their main focus and they look to find housing for their residents within six months.
Sinclair said getting residents connected to mental health services can be instrumental in helping people move out of the shelter.
“They may be looking for a driver’s license, a birth certificate, getting connected to mental health, medical health, VA services, disability,” Sinclair said, “you really never know what somebody needs to remove a barrier to get housed if that’s what they’re looking to do.”
La Clinica said they aren’t able open the clinic yet due to staffing issues, but they plan to open in the next several weeks.
Smith-Burns said they hope to have tele-health services available before then.
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