2-05-2025 9:37pm

Respite Care Partnership Connects Unhoused Patients With Shelter, Medical Care

Tom Akaolisa Editor

Respite Care Partnership Connects Unhoused Patients With Shelter, Medical Care

"I got my life back." Carolynn Clark says a partnership between M Health Fairview and Our Saviour's Community Services saved her from the brink of homelessness.

MINNEAPOLIS — Our Savior's Community Services has long offered unsheltered Minnesotans respite from the cold, but the warm welcome that took place outside the emergency shelter on Wednesday, was the result of a new kind of respite care.

Carolynn Clark revisited the shelter with her granddaughter, just a few days after celebrating her 60th birthday, in hopes of saying thanks to some of the people who kept her off the streets a year ago.

"Can I give you a hug?" said Natalie Shapiro, an RN for Fairview Health Services, who also works five days a week at Our Saviour's.

"Yes," Clark said. "I wanted to tell you how grateful I am. You really were a big help to me."

"I didn't know anyone and they stepped up."

In 2023, Clark knew she needed a drastic change in order to finally put an end to her 20-year battle with drug addiction.

She left her life — and family — in Dayton, Ohio and moved to Minneapolis to live in a sober house and commit to treatment.

"I was raising (my granddaughter) Buttons, up until I came to Minnesota," Clark said. "And it was so hard to leave her. She said, 'No Gigi, don't go!' But I knew that I couldn't be any good for her if I stayed."

Despite finding success in treatment, Carolynn struggled with her health and she was hospitalized after a serious fall in 2023. After two weeks, she was ready to be discharged from M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, but she soon learned that she no longer had a sober house to return to.

"They were unable to bill for me because I was hospitalized, so they kicked me out of the sober house," Clark said. "So that left me homeless. I was devastated. I didn't know where I was going to go."

Because Clark still needed medical care, and would eventually need spine surgery, M Health Fairview placed her into one of ten medical respite beds it rents from Our Saviour's as part of a unique partnership.

"We're able to immediately assess someone's needs, where they're at, where they land after hospitalization," Shapiro said. "That's why I'm here, to be able to say, 'What can you work on? What can't you work on? And how can I help, how can I fill those gaps?"

Shapiro says the program is designed to ensure that patients who need outpatient care don't slip through the cracks and return to situations that result in even worse outcomes for everyone.

"When you're living on the streets or in a tent or in a car, you're not focused a wound that might be getting worse," Shapiro said. "You're focused on like, 'Am I safe tonight? Do I have a place to put my head, are my things safe? Where am I going to find food? How am I going to stay warm?' If this partnership didn't exist, I think we know what might happen to them."

Since launching the partnership in 2022, she says Our Saviour's has already helped at least 320 medical referrals from M Health Fairview.

"There's a huge need and we aren't even able to accept all of the referrals that we get," she said. "Some people's medical needs are too acute for this space and for what we offer."

Those they can accept, receive much more than healthcare.

"Yeah, that's the best thing about this partnership," Shapiro said. "It's not just M Health Fairview and me as a nurse here. There's a whole team of shelter workers and case managers who are working with these individuals when they come in to connect them to truly whatever you can think of."

Shelter Manager, Cassandra Nelson, says that includes working hard to connect patients with a more permanent place to live.

"Yes, we try to get them housing ready while they're here on this program," Nelson said. "And because they are becoming more medically stable, I think it does uplift them and makes them think, I can do this."

That's exactly what it did for Clark. After 90 days in the shelter, she was able to find her own apartment, where she has now been able to host and reconnect with family.