TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Helping the homeless means going beyond providing what they need in the moment to fixing the problems that got them there in the first place. El Rio Health received a $1.1 million grant from the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration to provide more behavioral health services.

El Rio Health already helps homeless people where they live with medical teams. Adding behavioral health and substance abuse treatments is one more step to start changing the way they live.

“It’s very difficult, so this is a unique approach, and we think it will work,” said Clinton Kuntz, DBH, CEO of El Rio Health.

Kuntz described how to get homeless people in Pima County engaged in behavioral health and substance use disorder services. They already provide local services through medical teams who visit homeless people where they live.

“We’re going to take these departments to where they are and engage them at this point,” Kuntz said.

This includes homeless shelters and respite care like Casa de Respiro. A $1.1 million federal grant will help pay for additional staff to provide these behavioral health services.

“Our goal is to help these people, hopefully, get them engaged where we can start them on the path to recovery and with that might come stable housing and next steps.” Hopefully, maybe we’ll give them some job skills, then get them a job, then get them out on their own. So it’s a multi-step approach to getting someone to long-term stabilization in their life,” Kuntz said.

The provision of these services is not unique, but some approaches to combining them could be, and this grant will track the number of people who receive help, its outcomes and could provide information for the future and for other cities.

“Depending on the results, we hope that this funding can become sustainable and long-term. We need to report a lot of data on this, the results, that kind of thing,” Kuntz said.

El Rio hopes this should help a few hundred people and says teams currently reaching out to the homeless are contacting up to 13,000 people.

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