Maryland Assistance Program Links Housing and Healthcare

Maryland is launching a pilot program that acknowledges the link between housing and health. “The Assistance in Community Integration Services pilot’s housing-first approach, experts say, could further reduce health care expenditures and help people transition from homelessness to a stable home,” explains Kaitlyn Levinson in Route Fifty.

The program focuses in on addressing the health needs and illnesses that often cause people to become or stay homeless. “Since 2018, the city of Baltimore and Cecil, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have participated in the initiative. The jurisdictions, with the help of hospitals, have matched federal funds for the Medicaid program, which could total up to $7.2 million annually, according to the Maryland Department of Health.” Now, the state is pitching in to expand the initiative to all of Maryland.

According to a 2023 report, 77 percent of 615 program participants, 80 percent of whom were unhoused, moved into stable housing. Ryan Moran, deputy secretary of health care financing at Maryland’s Department of Health and the state’s Medicaid director, said the study validated what many advocates already know. “This is a worthwhile, long-term investment for the state … for individuals’ lives, and we know that Marylanders will be better off having been served through a program as innovative and novel as this one.”