Central Health Opens Respite Center to Aid Homeless Recovery

When Fletcher Jones had his fourth heart attack in April, he could no longer drive a truck for work. He had been a firefighter in Georgia for five years and a truck driver for 31 years. Without a job, the 61-year-old did not have a place to live or a space to recover from having a pacemaker inserted.

Two years ago, Gregory Carr was sitting in Travis County Jail for a probation violation when his eye began to bleed. The U.S. Navy veteran was diagnosed with cancer requiring surgery to take out his right eye and to reconstruct his face. Fresh out of the hospital in September 2023, Carr could not go back to jail with such a large open wound on his eye, and even after his jail time was dropped, he couldn't go back to his hometown hours away.

Both Carr and Jones were given one of the medical respite beds at A New Entry, paid for by Central Health, the hospital district for Travis County, which provides medical care for people at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. Central Health's respite program, which began in March 2022, pays for 20 respite beds for its patients at existing spaces.

Through that pilot program, more than 1,000 people had been referred and 350 helped. Only about a third of the referrals were able to be transitioned , mainly because "we didn't have a bed," said Dr. Audrey Kuang, Central Health’s co-director of high-risk populations and the founder of the medical respite program.

"We are ready to take it to the next level," Kuang said.

On Monday, Central Health will open the doors to its Central Health Respite Center, a 48-bed center mainly for people experiencing homelessness who need a place to recover from a serious illness or surgery. This will be in addition to the 10 beds at A New Entry.

The center has transformed the former Austin Children's Hospital at Interstate 35 and 15th Street, that since 2007, when the children's hospital moved to Dell Children's Medical Center, has served as an Ascension Seton training center and housed Ascension clinics.

Central Health, which is funded by property tax dollars, spent $5.5 million to remodel the building and expects to spend another $7 million over the next three years to run the center.

"We've sure needed it," said Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea. "They are helping people knit their lives back together."

Before having a respite program, people would be released from the hospital back to the streets or to Travis County Jail, Shea said.

Dr. Pat Lee, the president and CEO of Central Health, said at Monday's preview of the new space: "Without a safe place like Central Health Respite Center, recovery happens in the hardest places — under overpasses, on sidewalks or in overcrowded shelters. This leads to worse health outcomes, emergency visits and unnecessary suffering."

Inside the new center

The center was designed around trauma-informed principles of choice, comfort and community, Kuang said.

"To those people who felt unseen and forgotten, this will be their home where they will be able to stay," she said. "They will be welcomed with love, treated with respect and dignity."

Visitors are greeted with an open common area with various seating arrangements. Two patient intake rooms provide privacy for paperwork.

The first floor has a men's and women's wing with 30 beds for men and 18 for women. It will place transgender and nonbinary people in the wing that makes most sense for that person. The beds are grouped in bays of between two to four people with privacy screens between beds. Each of the wings has a bathroom with multiple sinks, showers and toilets.

In the public spaces, the center has three day rooms with TVs, a serenity room for meditation or prayer and a dining area. The center will not have a dining service on site, but has contracted with a food service to bring in meals. Residents also will have access to the tranquility garden.

On the third floor, the former Ascension Seton Adult Abdominal Transplant Clinic space has been transformed into a new Central Health Clinic that will be used for both the respite patients and general Central Health patients.

The clinic will have a space for wound care and physical therapy, as well as having primary care and an over-the-counter medication supply closet for the respite patients.

Who will the respite serve?

Most respite programs across the country are based in hospitals and have a direct referral from hospital to respite. Central Health will be receiving referrals from hospitals, nursing homes, the jail, its own clinics and CommUnityCare clinics, as well as clinics throughout the county.

People entering respite usually have experienced some medical event such as a surgery or an heart attack or stroke, but Central Health will have the flexibility to use the respite for people who need help controlling a chronic condition, have an open wound or who need to have a colonoscopy and need a safe space to prepare for that procedure.

Central Health has intentionally not put a time limit on length of stay. Kuang said the goal is to use the respite time to recover, but to also receive help getting into housing if the person wants.

"To me, this is what health equity is about," Kuang said. "Regardless of your housing status, you have the best chance to achieve your optimal health."

For Carr, the respite staff helped him get his state ID and eye glasses, as well as dentures needed after the facial reconstruction. He was able to then leave respite to return to his hometown.

"They were a great help," he said.

For Jones, respite helped the incision around his pacemaker heal. He's also been able to get help controlling his blood pressure, and most importantly, Jones will soon be given the key to his own apartment through Family Eldercare's housing program.

"When I was worried, stressed out and didn't know where to go, they told me don't worry," Jones said.

"I'm a living example," he said. "They take it from the beginning to the end. This is my new beginning," he said.