SAN JOSE -- Being named host city for this week's International Street Medicine Symposium might bring to mind Abraham Lincoln's story about a man who is tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Asked how he liked it, the man replies, "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd rather walk."
If it wasn't for the honor of being awash in wealth, while so many homeless people wallow in despair on its streets and in its creek beds, the city of San Jose probably would rather not be singled out for its "unique backdrop of stark socioeconomic disparity."
That municipal muddle of rich and poor, living side by side and worlds apart, was noted by organizers of the conference, which will explore strategies on providing health care for the homeless Thursday through Saturday at San Jose State.
With one of the nation's highest median household incomes, and headquarters to some of Silicon Valley's most successful tech companies, Santa Clara County also is home to the country's fifth-largest homeless population. And according to a comprehensive study undertaken by Destination: Home -- which ended in 2012, just as Valley Homeless Healthcare's backpack medicine program was starting up -- 53 percent of the cost to care for people living outside was being gobbled up by health care.
To continue reading this story by Bruce Newman, go to: http://www.mercurynews.com/bay...omeless-deliver-care
Comments (0)