Will-Grundy Medical Clinic receives $50k grant for HHH Program

Will-Grundy Medical Clinic has announced it has received a $50,000 grant from Telligen Community Initiative, a private, Iowa-based charitable foundation. These funds will support the Housing, Healthcare Hope program, which works to address both the healthcare and housing needs of participants.

In July 2020, WGMC expanded the Will County social safety net by creating a new program known as Housing, Healthcare, and Hope program. The program addresses the inherent healthcare disparities of those who experience homelessness and aims to understand and eliminate the underlying factors which lead to housing insecurity.

The highest-need population that this program serves is the nearly 300 houseless individuals in Will County and housing insecure individuals who lack medical access and a medical home — equaling almost 8,000 from Will County. HHH’s clients are underinsured or uninsured, near the poverty line, lack medical homes, and/or are homeless, leading to high co-occurrence between chronic health conditions, mental illness, and opioid use. The overarching goal of HHH is to comprehensively meet participant needs with wraparound services, ensuring available and accessible healthcare to the communities it serves.

The program was one of only 21 grants selected for TCI’s 2022 Illinois and Iowa-based funding cycle, which awarded a total of $918,137 in grants to nonprofit organizations in these states. This includes 12 grants totaling $507,580 to Illinois nonprofits and $410,557 in funding to nine grantees in Iowa. TCI works to support projects in the priority funding areas of healthcare workforce development and access to care for the underserved. Since 2014, TCI has awarded more than $15 million to 357 organizations and projects in Iowa, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado.

The HHH program served 220 participants during the 2021-22 fiscal year. These participants have reduced their hospital utilization, decreased hospital emergency room use, found permanent housing, and/or accessed consistent health services. Based on this success and the increased funding stream from TCI, the intended outcomes for 2022-23 are to assist an additional 200 participants.