Advocacy
Advocacy for the Homeless
While the crisis of homelessness has worsened, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles has continued to serve and educate the community about the connections between health and homelessness.
Our advocacy efforts work to put an end to homelessness and improve the lives of homeless individuals and families through community education, public policy analysis, networking, advocacy, organizing, and community action. Our advocacy efforts, while rooted in the realities of homelessness in Los Angeles, may at times take on a statewide or national focus in the areas of health care reform and housing policy.
We continually challenge ourselves to help our clients build the skills they need to become participants in the larger advocacy and decision-making roles of our society. Whether organizing women to participate in a community demonstration, registering homeless people to vote, or facilitating public speaking opportunities for women in our program, we seek to help each client claim their voice and political power.
Through HHCLA’s ongoing advocacy efforts throughout Los Angeles, our staff has developed relationships of respect with homeless individuals and homeless service providers that make our work uniquely effective. HHCLA’s projects have sought to benefit the community and have covered topics such as the following: the availability of substance abuse treatment programs in L.A. County, the enumeration of homeless people by the U.S. Census Bureau and the LAPD, and policy and practice recommendations for combating tuberculosis, hepatitis, and homelessness. HHCLA pioneered the first AIDS education programs for homeless shelters and organized the first cross-training conference on AIDS and homelessness to bring attention to the epidemic’s effect on homeless people. HHCLA has collaborated with other members of the community to establish a recuperation care facility for homeless people in need of assistance after hospital discharge; in placing Medi-Cal eligibility workers in prenatal clinics; in creating the Health Care Consortium of Central Los Angeles; and in opposing funding cuts to the overburdened health care system in Los Angeles County.
Go to our Advocacy Blog
For more information on HHCLA’s Advocacy Program, contact us at 213-744-0724 or by email.
