This Aging and Disability Business Institute article features the inspiring story of Bay Area Community Services (BACS), a community-based organization (CBO) in Oakland, California that is leveraging its business acumen training to partner with a large health care system to provide critical post-hospital supports and services to homeless individuals, a particularly complex and difficult-to-engage patient population.

The pilot program for short-term housing and respite services surpassed expectations by serving twice as many people as planned and doubling the size of the contract. Some benefits of the program were a reduction in the number of older adults’ returning to the streets while medically-vulnerable, as well as lowering the readmission rate to the hospital. These quality and cost impacts were encouraging enough that BACS has scaled the program to other communities, opening the door to new partnership opportunities with health care entities.

Read the full article below to learn more about this innovative CBO, and get inspired by their entrepreneurial spirit.

Post-Hospital Respite Program Gives Frail Homeless Elders a Safe Place to Recover (PDF)