When most of us have a medical procedure that requires recovery, we do so in the comfort of our own home, often under the watchful eye of a loved one or caregiver. If the recovery requires long-term assistance, it can be done in a rehabilitation center. This kind of care is known by health experts as respite care.

But what many of us may not consider is what if you have no place to recover or resources like insurance to pay for it? Imagine fracturing a foot, needing a hernia repaired or requiring cataract surgery. Upon receiving acute care, what if you were left to recover on the streets? This is the reality many experiencing homelessness confront every day. For Harris Health System, services provided to homeless individuals pose concerns of ensuring patients have a place to prepare and recover from a minor procedure or surgery.

“Respite care is a huge passion of mine,” says Amy Smith, senior vice president of Transitions and Post-Acute Care, Harris Health. It’s a role created specifically to address this issue, one Smith calls her “dream job.”

Smith, who worked for healthcare systems in Philadelphia and Boston says, “In the northeast part of the country, respite care is more widely available. When I came to Harris Health, I noticed that Houston/Harris County didn’t have adequate respite care, especially for the homeless population. We needed medical respite care to bridge the gap between the emergency center and their everyday life, a safe place to go post-surgery. When Open Door Mission became a possibility for respite care, we knew it would be an important partnership.”

Now, Harris Health and Open Door Mission are making it a reality.

“People don’t think about homeless people needing surgery or having an accident,” says Tommy Thompson, CEO of Open Door Mission. “When they get released after a hospital stay where do they go to recuperate? We wanted to provide that safe, clean and comfortable place.”

Through this ongoing partnership, the Medical Respite and Recuperative Care Center at Open Door Mission and Harris Health opened its doors earlier this year. Open Door Mission – with 175 beds already provides extensive services to Houston’s homeless population at no cost, including substance abuse recovery, mental health assessment and a program that helps individuals obtain their GED. The respite care collaboration with Harris Health is a unique program for homeless men in Harris County.

With 28 beds, the respite care center at Open Door Mission provides desperately needed services for this vulnerable population. Consider the case of Will (for privacy considerations this is not his real name). Will is currently housed at the center and has been for more than five years. For years, he has been undergoing cancer care, homeless and often sick from chemotherapy and radiation treatments. He has nowhere to go, but needs the care.

“Will’s become part of our family,” Thompson says. “We provide him everything he needs. Without us, he’d literally die in the streets.”

This heartbreaking reality – where unhoused people who don’t have access to respite care are subjected to the violence, disease and substance abuse of homeless life – is what drove people like Smith and Thompson to prioritize this kind of care.

“I became a nurse to help people,” Smith says. “And when I see this underserved population and how we bring care directly to them, it makes me just want to do more. At Harris Health, our north star is this underserved population. Our goal is to expand the program that began at Open Door and one day provide many, many more beds for this type of care.”

Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, president and CEO, Harris Health System, (left to right) Tommy Thompson, CEO, Open Door Mission, and Amy Smith, senior vice president of Transitions and Post-Acute Care, Harris Health, share a joyful embrace at the grand opening of the Medical Respite and Recuperative Care Center at Open Door Mission, a collaboration with Harris Health that provides homeless men a place to prepare and recover from minor medical procedures or surgeries.

To qualify for the respite care center, patients must be discharged from Harris Health Ben Taub Hospital or Harris Health Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, be male and be able to dress and feed themselves, take medication independently and have some mobility to get around and use the restroom. Harris Health workers are in constant contact with Open Door to make sure anyone they send to the center will benefit from the services Open Door offers. The goal is to provide this population better, safer care while keeping the finite resources of these hospitals as accessible as possible to all Harris County residents.

Once a patient is admitted to the program, Thompson and the other staff at Open Door provide more services – all at no cost. They try to find permanent housing for the patient through the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County while Harris Health social workers follow up on the patient’s medical recovery. If substance abuse is a factor, the individual can be connected to the shelter’s drug and alcohol recovery program. The program, which can last seven months to a year with intensive and supportive treatment, is based on a participant’s progress. Program graduates leave with a job thanks to its career guidance program and second chance employers.

In partnership with Harris Health, Open Door’s integrated system – where a man can enter unhoused and unwell – and leave with housing, a job, and a new lease on life – is making a difference in people’s lives every day. Because all of their services are offered to those experiencing homelessness at no cost, Open Door relies on donations provided by individuals, churches and foundations to continue to provide these vital resources. Since 2015, Harris Health has maintained an outpatient clinic at the shelter where staff provide primary care through Harris Health’s Healthcare for Homeless Program. Here, homeless men receive a wide variety of medical services administered by a nurse practitioner or medical assistant. This program enables healthcare problems long-ignored to be detected and treated while in residence, decreases emergency center use for primary care needs and increases health promotion and prevention education among the homeless in the community.

As for Smith and the health experts at Harris Health, bringing awareness to healthcare services for the homeless is top of mind.

 “We want people to know they exist. These programs are not about money, it’s about providing lifesaving care to those who need it most,” she says.