{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Policy Crimes","title":"Housing as Healthcare | Dr. Cheryl Forchuk","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2606,"description":"In this episode, Dr. Cheryl Forchuk — a leading Canadian researcher and mental health nurse — traces how hospitals shifted from rarely discharging patients into homelessness to doing so with alarming frequency.\nIn the 1980s, a discharge to “no fixed address” was so unusual it set off hospital-wide concern. By the 2000s, it had become routine. Forchuk led landmark studies showing that simple changes at discharge, such as connecting patients to housing advocates and fast-tracking income supports, could prevent homelessness altogether. These interventions not only stabilized lives, but also reduced strain and costs across the healthcare system.\nWe explore how hospitals can play a huge role in preventing homelessness and why homeless prevention is both cheaper and more effective than relying on emergency responses.\nGet extras and support the show: https://thepublicationcoop.substack.com\nGuest: Dr. Cheryl Forchuk is Distinguished University Professor at Western University and Assistant Director at the Lawson Health Research Institute. A registered nurse and researcher, she has spent decades leading collaborative studies on the intersections of homelessness, housing, and mental health. Her work has shaped discharge planning practices, Housing First models, and national policy conversations on treating housing as healthcare. This summer she was appointed to the Order of Canada.\nTopics Covered:How discharges from hospitals became a pathway into homelessnessLandmark studies on preventing “No Fixed Address” at dischargeWhy homelessness increases healthcare costs and hospital staysHow health data suggests homeless numbers could be 3x higher than we thoughtPractical models to overcome agency silos and scale homeless prevention nationallyStudies referenced:Developing and Testing an Intervention to Prevent Homelessness among Individuals Discharged from Psychiatric Wards to Shelters and ‘No Fixed Address’ (2008)Preventing Psychiatric Discharge to Homelessness (2013)Hospital...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/-qFAzt9KD_NLQj8vmAK6B_j6BnOIdoMW8aFnoeggW7Y/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS85NDRh/Y2U1MDcxZDhiZmI2/ZjYyNjVjNmEzMDJl/MDQyYi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}