After years of wrangling, Arnold\u2019s Place, a purpose-built recuperative care facility near the Island\u2019s Crab Cove for the unhoused who\u2019ve recently had surgery or are suffering from an illness, has opened its doors to 50 patients. The service, run by LifeLong Medical Care, moved from its former 27-bed facility in West Oakland.<\/p>\n
Built on land that at one time housed several Naval Air Station Alameda buildings near the city\u2019s Crown Beach, the new West End facility offers services such as primary medical care; follow-up appointment support and medication; three meals a day; clothing and personal hygiene assistance; and \u201csupportive programming focused on recovery, connection and well-being,\u201d according to a statement from LifeLong Medical. Also, pets are allowed.<\/p>\n
Ryan Wythe, LifeLong Medical\u2019s homelessness services director, describes recuperative care as providing housing along with nursing support for conditions that unhoused people would not be able to heal from completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecuperative care plays a really important part of our healthcare safety net in that it\u2019s preventing a lot of preventable emergency room visits,\u201d Wythe says. \u201cAfter somebody\u2019s been stabilized in the emergency department and their conditions are no longer needing that level of care, they can step down and finish their healing process at Arnold\u2019s Place as opposed to being discharged to the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patients can stay at the facility for up to 90 days and are given a \u201cvulnerability assessment\u201d to determine their prospects for receiving a supportive housing voucher upon release. The vulnerability assessment gives patients a score that determines their place in line for the vouchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour score dictates where you fall on the list, and where you fall on the list will dictate your prioritization for a voucher,\u201d says Wythe.<\/p>\n
Scores are based on a combination of factors such as \u201chow long you have been homeless,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you\u2019ve been homeless for longer, you would get a higher vulnerability score.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also looking at the combination of different chronic and acute health conditions or illnesses that you might be living with. The more complex your healthcare history is, the higher your score is going to be. That\u2019s kind of how the scoring works. It\u2019s based on vulnerability. And so the higher your score is, the higher you\u2019re prioritized on the list for a voucher.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the commonly held belief that unhoused people can\u2019t find housing because they don\u2019t want to obey rules, Wythe asserts that in general this is a pretty big mischaracterization and that the real culprit is a lack of affordable housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross the board in the state of California, we have underproduced the number of affordable housing units needed to house low- and no-income people,\u201d says Wythe. \u201cWe have divested from transitional housing over the last decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done away with redevelopment agencies, and so there\u2019s been a lot of divestment in creating the necessary infrastructure for more affordable housing. So really the basis for which people are not indoors is because the housing part doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
LifeLong Medical Care\u2019s Dr. Jason Reinking says Arnold\u2019s Place is not simply a short-term discharge stop with nowhere to go afterward. He says there is a whole network of places people can go afterward including transitional housing for the medically frail, shelters, substance use treatment programs and in some cases permanent housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLess than 20% of our folks discharge back to the streets,\u201d Reinking says.<\/p>\n
Arnold\u2019s Place, formerly known as the \u201cMcKay Wellness Center,\u201d was definitely not built in a day. In 2019, opponents of the plan originally passed by the Alameda City Council got Measure B put on the Alameda ballot. This would have turned the area where the facility is located into a nature preserve. A competing initiative, Measure A, let the project move forward. Measure A passed 7,599 to 6,642 while Measure B failed 7,956 to 6,152.<\/p>\n
Brenda Goldstein, LifeLong Medical\u2019s chief of integrated services, says the road to building Arnold\u2019s Place was based on a vision.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, we were guided by a vision of Arnold\u2019s Place as a space where patients\u2014who might otherwise have been discharged to the streets\u2014could heal with dignity and care. We imagined staff and patients working side-by-side, sharing meals, getting fresh air and reconnecting with community. Today, that vision is real. Arnold\u2019s Place is not just a beautiful building \u2014 it is a living, healing community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arnold\u2019s Place is at 1245 McKay Ave. in Alameda. For more information, visit alamedawellnesscampus.org<\/a>, the Alameda Point Collaborative\u2019s website at apcollaborative.org<\/a> or LifeLong Medical at lifelongmedical.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n