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Chapter 9: Integrated Health Care <br />• Prevent those in treatment and formerly homeless people with disabilities from <br />losing their housing. <br />Action Steps <br />- Provide health, mental health, and AOD-related training and short-term <br />financial help to current and new board and care providers providing short-term <br />care for those who need episodic home health support. <br />- Advocate with legislators, Medical, and managed care policy makers to include <br />home health attendant care as an option and alternative care to more expensive <br />alternatives. <br />- Develop coordinating mechanisms, such as MOUs, between health agencies <br />serving those at risk homelessness to cover such things as In Home Support <br />Services and attendant care. <br />- Provide staff to monitor youths with disabilities "aging out" of children's health <br />care system to ensure that they receive housing, services, and appropriate care <br />from the adult system. <br />- Support existing criminal justice diversion programs which divert individuals <br />whose core problem is mental health or substance abuse from the justice system <br />to outreach, assessment and treatment programs. <br />• Maintain and expand early intervention to prevent the worsening of disabilities for <br />homeless people. <br />Action Stens <br />Provide prevention and early intervention efforts to prevent worsening of <br />people's disabilities, which can lead to loss of housing and high treatment costs. <br />Funding should address the need for: episodic long-term (over one month) <br />treatment, additional temporary and on-going support services, and a <br />comprehensive prevention strategy to prevent and reduce AOD problems among <br />homeless people and those at risk of homelessness. Pay special attention to <br />decreasing the number of adolescents and young adults with disabilities who <br />become homeless. <br />Maintain and support the existing 24 hour, county-wide AOD crisis hotline and <br />publicize its availability county-wide. <br />Identify high risk settings and target groups where harm reduction strategies <br />may be beneficial. Encourage entry into treatment by providing trained, peer- <br />based counseling and other supportive services supporting reductions in alcohol <br />or drug use as part of a gradual recovery process leading to rehabilitation. <br />Alameda County-Wide Homeless Continuum of Care Plan: April 1997 <br />119 <br />