Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program receives HHS funding and has Federal PHS deemed status with respect to certain health or health-related claims, including medical malpractice claims, for itself and its covered individuals.
Ensuring Access
In 2018, the Kraft Center for Community Health partnered with BHCHP, the Boston Public Health Commission and the GE foundation to launch CCiR as a mobile health program to bring life-saving addiction services directly to historically stigmatized populations in Boston.
Since 2021, the CCiR team is also supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The CCiR team, equipped with a health clinic on wheels, is able to offer readily accessible medications to treat opioid use disorder, harm reduction services and supplies, and much more, directly to people on the streets. It operates consistently and according to peoples’ common whereabouts. The van parks in some of Boston’s overdose hot spots, including the West End, Nubian Square, and near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, for eight four-hour sessions each week, two of which are focused specifically on young adults. Addiction medicine clinicians on the CCiR van work hard to form lasting relationships with patients founded on mutual respect, and partner with the Boston Public Health Commission’s Access, Harm Reduction, Overdose Prevention, Education (AHOPE) program to leverage the pre-existing relationships AHOPE staff have developed through their harm reduction work.
