AS A FAMILY medicine physician at Boston Medical Center, I have cared for hundreds of individuals and families experiencing homelessness over the last 20 years. The landscape of housing services that I can offer them continues to change, sometimes leaving me with a great sense of hope and possibility and, at other times, more hopeless than ever for my patients’ restoration to health.
Recently, this seesaw from hope to hopelessness has become more extreme, as decisions by our state leaders seem to be simultaneously pulling in opposite directions when it comes to housing help for those most in need.Two families for whom I provide medical care illustrate the mixed messages of our state’s recent housing policies affecting the state’s most vulnerable residents.
The first is a husband-and-wife couple in their seventies. I have cared for them both for over 10 years, and while they have both suffered a litany of medical concerns, the husband has been particularly unwell. He came to me with a history of long, uncontrolled high blood pressure and diabetes with an ensuing heart attack and stroke. He also was suffering from an untreated substance use disorder, which helped him paper over his years of untreated anxiety and depression…