In pushing deep Medicaid cuts through Congress this year, President Trump and his Republican allies did not just squeeze a program that pays doctors and hospitals to provide poor people health care.
Over the last decade, states have increasingly used Medicaid dollars for another critical effort: helping the homeless and other vulnerable groups find stable housing.
To glimpse that little-known work, consider the journey of Michelle Cates, a food safety trainer who lost her job and apartment after a brain disease triggered seizures and intensified her struggles with anxiety and depression.
After two years in a Baltimore shelter, Ms. Cates received a federal rent subsidy. But finding an apartment was a challenge for a woman prone to blackouts and panic attacks.
A caseworker financed by Medicaid found a willing landlord and cut through the paperwork. Now she visits weekly to monitor Ms. Cates’s moods and medications, and even takes her to the grocery store, a crowded space Ms. Cates otherwise avoids for fear of passing out.
“This isn’t a battle I can fight alone,” said Ms. Cates, 44, as she worked a pair of crochet needles to calm her nerves. “If I didn’t have the help, I wouldn’t be here — I would be homeless again.”
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The post Trump’s Medicaid Cuts Could Hamper Efforts to House the Homeless appeared first on New York Times.
