‘Revolutionary’ Orange County street medicine program expands to another city

An Orange County program that provides consistent medical care to people living on the streets is coming to Costa Mesa.

“The current healthcare system does really not accommodate unhoused members,” said Kelly Bruno-Nelson with Medi-Cal. “It requires them to go into a system that really does not care for their needs. Street medicine goes to them.”

The street medicine program by CalOptima Health – Orange County’s Medi-Cal plan – will provide ongoing primary care and social services for unhoused people in Costa Mesa.

“The hope, of course, is to increase their health outcomes and allow them to be healthier,” Bruno-Nelson said. “Ultimately, we can't ensure they're healthy unless we house them.”

Bruno-Nelson said that while street medicine is nothing new, most previous programs were short-term and didn’t have the consistent funding to allow healthcare providers to do follow-ups.

“What CalOptima Health has created is primary care on the street,” she said. “These individuals will now have a primary care doctor, like you and I have, that will see them on a regular basis, actually once a month. I believe it’s going to be revolutionary.”

Every patient served by the clinic will have access to a primary care physician, a behavioral health specialist, and a “navigator” with lived experience who can help people engage with social services.

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This is the second program of its kind CalOptima has launched in Orange County. Bruno-Nelson says their first street medicine program in Garden Grove succeeded in getting about a dozen people off the streets and into permanent housing.

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