Groundbreaking For New Homeless Healthcare Clinic BALTIMORE, MD (wypr) - Standing near a speaker at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Health Care for the Homeless clinic, or HCH, Earline wore sunglasses. With one eye closed and the other full of tears, she said before she found the clinic, she had given up on life.

Wouldn't nobody help me. Wouldn't nobody help me. It was always, no ain't got no insurance, you ain't got no ID. You go to the hospital, right, they'd put you in a psych ward for three days and send you back out on the street.

The clinic staff on Park Avenue, Earline added, helped her.
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They let me know that I was diabetic and had high blood pressure. You know what I mean? They provide my medication for me, and they showed me that I could have a new way of life.

The clinic's nurses go into the city looking homeless people in distress, sometimes even taking their blood pressure on the street.

A thin, brown-skinned woman, Genese, 43, said she just had open heart surgery. When she found out she owed 30-thousand dollars in hospital bills, Genese said she nearly fainted.

It really felt bad because, matter fact, it almost, I didn't have a heart attack, but it worried me more. And I was trying to get well, but I couldn't get well because I kept thinking about, I got all these bills and do this and do that, so it stressed me out a lot.

Thanks to the clinic, Genese has medical assistance now, to help pay those bills and any new ones.



Last year, Health Care for the Homeless served more than 6-thousand people in Baltimore, but turned away about 2,000 more. That's why they're building a new downtown clinic on the southeast corner of Fallsway and Hillen Street. They have no more space to expand at their present headquarters.


Kevin Lindamood is the Vice President of External Affairs for the clinic. Sitting in his office, he estimates Baltimore's homeless population at about 3,000. Many homeless people, Lindamood added, can't even pay one dollar for a co-pay, let alone 20 dollars for a sliding scale fee.

Often what happens, even though we have an all-payer system, people will go to an emergency room and then, a little bit later, they'll get a bill in the mail and then they'll get another bill, and then they'll get a call from a collection agency.

Every February, Clarence Brown, one of the clients at the clinic, attends the annual homeless persons lobby day. He talks to state legislators about the plight of the homeless.

They have no place to go. They're sleeping on park benches; they're sleeping in abandominiums,' and that we cry out for help. We tell them that the homeless need health care, too. Homeless people shouldn't have to be turned away no more than any other person that needs health care, because we suffer just as much as any other ordinary individual. So, basically, I just say to them, homeless people have rights too.

The state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene contributed about four million dollars to help fund the new 17-and-a-half million-dollar clinic.

After signing her name on the pipe to be used for construction of the new center, Mayor Sheila Dixon said she's working with people, like Health Care for the Homeless president Jeff Singer, to eliminate homelessness.

So, we're doing block-by-block. Making a significant difference. And this is really just the beginning, because, ultimately, the goal is if we end homelessness, as Jeff Singer said, this can be a health care facility for the community, for all.

The new 54-thousand square foot center will open in 2010. Health Care for the Homeless is the only organization in Maryland that provides a full array of medical care, even if people can't pay. .

I'm Farrah Childs, reporting in downtown Baltimore, for 88-1, WYPR
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