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The Spokesman-Review

Providence to close Community Care Center in Olympia

By Martín Bilbao - OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA – Providence Southwest plans to close its Community Care Center in Olympia and pivot toward a new, mobile outreach approach.

The Community Care Center, as it exists today, offers physical and behavioral health medical care to unhoused people. In a Tuesday news release, Providence announced it aims to shift operations to a so-called “Street Medicine” program.

With this new approach, Providence teams aim to help people where they are and connect them with other social services. They will partner with another local program, called the Homeless Outreach Stabilization Team (HOST) in service of this goal as well.

“Community partnerships are how society’s toughest challenges are solved,” said Darin Goss, chief executive of Providence Swedish South Puget Sound. “We will continue to serve our community with like-minded partners, meeting individuals where they are.”

Tendai Masiriri, Director of Behavioral Health at Providence Southwest, said the street medicine team will include advanced nurse practitioners and mental health professionals who also work on case management.

“It’s really ensuring that we hand hold and walk alongside these patients when they navigate a complex health system,” Masiriri said.

The Street Medicine team has started meeting with people in the field, Masiriri said. The next step will be transitioning away from the centralized location to the mobile model. He said he expects that to occur early next year.

The Community Care Center first opened in September 2017 to help vulnerable community members who would normally utilize Providence St. Peter Hospital’s Emergency Department.

Providence only started exploring a different approach after seeing how the pandemic affected the center. Providence spokesperson Angela Maki said they initially closed the center due to overcrowding and then transitioned to an appointment system.

In the aftermath, she said Providence realized a mobile approach would better serve people experiencing homelessness who are spread out across the county.

Rita Degrate, who manages the Street Medicine team, said the mobile approach helps people feel more comfortable when meeting health care providers.

“Even the act of requiring them to come into our space, flips the power differential into the provider’s favor,” Degrate said. “When we are approaching them in their space, they are able to maintain that power and really participate in their care in a really meaningful way.”

Team members assess and help people on the ground, Degrate said. If a patient needs more care, she said the team can meet them with more resources or refer them other resources in the community.

Providence will use two refurbished vehicles, an ambulance and a medical RV to meet some people in the field. Olympic Ambulance donated the ambulance and Providence Community Health Investment provided grant funding for the RV, according to the release.

“A lot of these clients are reticent to leave all their earthly possessions and go to the hospital for an unspecified amount of time,” Degrate said. “What we’re able to do with these vehicles then is say, ‘You don’t have to leave to get this service. ... I can pull up in an ambulance and you only have to leave for 30 minutes or an hour.’ ” People can expect to see the RV parked in areas where many unhoused people congregate, such as Quince Street Village, per the release.

Meanwhile, the ambulance will help people in areas that are difficult for the RV to reach.

Providence will work with the HOST program, which is funded by the Washington State Health Care Authority, Olympia Health and Recovery Services, Providence Southwest Washington Foundation and Thurston County.

“One of the important things about HOST is that they have already made these incredibly vital connections already in the encampments and small, tiny home communities,” Degrate said. “We are coming alongside them, dovetailing off of these connections.”

In this phase, Masiriri said the Street Medicine team will work 10 hours a day and four days a week. They hope to help about 12 patients a day.

Degrate said the Street Medicine program started slowly so it could build trust and gauge what the unhoused population needed.

“Even though we do have the incredible resources of a major health care system, we are just people helping people at the end of the day,” Degrate said. “As those needs exceed our initial capacity, we’ll grow. And thankfully, we have incredible resources to help us do that.”