Living on the street damages health because they are exposed to many risks like violence, cold, rain or insolations. Also, every day, they have to confront fear, insecurity and lack of rest. According to the homeless people 2021 census, 59% declare having health problems and 19% have chronic illnesses.
Living on the street also affects mental health. In some cases, people present more than one condition and do not find answers at any centre. The challenge is to find proper and stable resources according to people needs.
What do we do at Arrels?
We accompany people to go to the doctor
Homeless people, despite health problems they suffer, they usually dissociate of the health network. At Arrels, we accompany them and we bridge between national health clinics, hospitals and monitoring centres of drug treatment.
In 2023, we accompanied 333 people to access the network for health care, mental health care, and addiction services.
We visit hospitals
Everybody likes to receive a visit when is hospitalized. That is why, a volunteer team specifically do. They visit and accompany homeless people that have to spend some time at the hospital.
Simple things like bring a comb or a pyjama, giving a book or a magazine and offering some time improve mentally people’s health.
“I do not have a health insurance card”
Often, homeless people do not have a health insurance card nor any kind of document because they have lost it or have been robbed. According to homeless people 2019 census, only 53% of polled people have a health insurance card. A figure that decrease for the third consecutive year.
Accompanying makes it easier to process the documents again and gives homeless people access to public health.
We watch over the mental well-being
Arrels works in coordination with the standardised health network and the Team of Mental Health for Homeless People (Equipo de Salud Mental para Personas Sin hogar (ESMES) to visit people with a serious mental disorder.
Since 2015, Arrels wants to go deeply into the knowledge and the neurological diagnosis to understand better conduct disorders and offer a more comprehensive look to the person.
We accompany them with their addictions
At Arrels, we also accompany people with addictions like alcohol. In some cases, we accompany them to detoxification treatment and in other cases, we work to reduce this addiction always respecting their will and time.
We know having a home improves health
Some of the people we assist suffer two or more disorders, like a mental illness and an alcohol addiction, and do not find where they can recover. In these cases, Arrel’s Pere Barnés home play its part. It receives people that have lived on the street and have delicate physical and mental health, while they find a vacancy in other specialised resource.
We watch over homeless people to recover their eating habits
Homeless people suffer eating disorders and do not have a healthy eating. We try to make them eat three meals per day.
- At the Pere Barnés home, we have a dining room for resident people and other people we know and live or have lived on the street.
- It also makes prepared meals to take away for people that live in some of the Arrels’ flats and do not know how to cook so they can eat it at home.
We have pharmacological service
Most of the people we know need scheduled medical treatments, but most of them have difficulties to keep and administer medication.
At Arrels we have pharmacy services where each person receives the medication they need.
We offer podiatry services
Living on the street means to wander about the town all day and often with not proper shoes, which causes foot pain.
That’s why it is so important these podiatry services at Arrels that, once a week, treats small feet problems of people we assist at the open centre.
We promote music against listlessness
Music has become a great solution to the well-being of homeless people at Arrels because it allows to interact with others, strengthen links and having a good time.
Moreover, at the llar it is a great therapeutic instrument to fight against listlessness, that affects 77% of resident people.