Medical Respite: Post-Hospitalization Support for Californians Experiencing Homelessness

Medical respite, or recuperative care, provides acute and postacute care for people experiencing homelessness who have recently been discharged from the inpatient setting. These programs are a growing part of the homeless services continuum throughout California. This paper surveys the California medical respite landscape and examines variation in program components, funding sources and mechanisms, and associated challenges and opportunities.

As California drives toward implementation of the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, which features incentives to expand medical respite programs, there is an opportunity to grow statewide capacity of such programs for people experiencing homelessness.