Joining us this morning from SSM Health, we have Laura Nikowski, who's the community health manager for a greater Fond du Lac region, and specifically the hospitals in Ribbon or Pond and at St.
Agnes in Fond du Lac.
Good morning, Laura.
Good morning.
Pleasure to be here today.
Now, we're going to be talking about the point in time, which is basically an account that's done twice a year.
Um to gauge the homeless population What is what is SSM health's role in this?
Yeah, so you know all of our housing resource partners are required by their federal funding to complete this census twice a year and it's always on the third
Wednesday of January and July into the third one day of the month, going into Thursday morning.
And what I've been partnering now for the point in time census, I started back in 2024.
So I've done, actually, I think this was my sixth one, you know, for my third one in July.
And I have a census recorder and I am a driver.
So there's a team of us.
We all have different routes.
And we go out and we drive around.
It feels kind of like you are stepping into a very, very different type of area.
You might be really from your area and be a local person.
But when you're driving around at night doing this, it feels very different.
And last night I had the opportunity of taking my intern and also a provider, a family med provider came with me as well.
And every time I kind of bring someone new, someone who's been interested in learning more about homelessness, I think we learn a lot when we participate in this because we can have a lot of preconceived notions.
We can make a lot of assumptions about what we think.
Homelessness is and I really think point in time the pit does a really wonderful job of showing you what it is and what's not and it's not something scary But it is a lot of people trying to make it work and living out of cars
Okay, so what area did you did you guys cover you're driving around?
Right, right.
So I've done a whole wide array, and it's really dependent on how many teams that you have available.
Last night, we unfortunately had a very small crew.
So if you're interested in being a point-in-time volunteer, I really encourage you to reach out to Advocat, which does a wonderful job of leading that work.
But we had a small crew, so we stayed more locally to the Fond du Lac area, but there was also a crew that was doing Green Lake.
and you have a route that then you have to like submit your route.
So we have like 10 locations.
There's like the east side, west side, north side, south, central, that type of thing.
I've done where I've gone all the way out into Campbell Sport and then you do that whole route and then you come back.
I've done the route in Ripon where you're gonna try and go to like the high V. You're gonna try and drive around maybe some schools of the park.
And you're looking for people not for a punitive or like reporting them, like badly.
What you're looking at is, hey, are these people homeless and do they need help?
How can we support them?
How can we make sure that they know about the resources available to them?
So it's always interesting.
You never know where you're gonna go.
And that's kind of the fun part.
Okay, so you start out at,
11 p.m.
and when does your night wrap up for the count?
Yeah, it depends.
So we usually wrap around 2 to 2.30 in the morning for our whatever route you were assigned.
And then it will continue on into the morning today.
And in Fond du Lac, we are really encouraging those to partake in the point in time resource fair.
where those that are unhoused can go where every all of those resource providers that are unhoused individual would likely use and have access to and want to are all there together and then while they are attending this resource fair they can then be captured in that census because it's still within the time frame.
I believe it goes into like the evening until today
But that would be something that Advocat being the owner of the point in time census probably can speak to that much better than I can.
Right.
Actually, we will be having Advocat's executive director on next week to talk about different things.
So we'll ask her.
Time
is wonderful.
Yeah.
Time is wonderful.
She was there with me last night.
Oh, was she?
Yeah, she sure was.
Yeah, we ended up not driving together, not because I don't want her to ride with me, but she just
There was less people in one car, so she just went with them.
That's
all.
Yeah.
Well, I know she knows her way around Rippendown because she's been out here quite a few times.
So anyway.
She has.
She has.
So this is something that is required by the U.S.
Housing and Urban Development Department, right?
Yes.
Yep.
Twenty-two years.
Yeah.
And then
And then there's also, like, you capture the number that those are in shelter, you know, like in the wintertime, those that are at the Holy Family Warming Shelter or those that are at, right now, at any time at St.
Catherine Drexel Shelter, you have your in-shelter numbers and then you have your on-the-street numbers.
Okay, so we talked a little bit about advocates rolling this, but how does this benefit what SSM Health does?
Absolutely.
So we need to work together, right?
It's very important that we want everyone to know and we certainly want our own house neighbors to know that we always will care for them and serve them.
We have a wonderful department called Samaritan Clinic.
It's not a clinic, not a brick and mortar clinic where they're gonna see patients, but it used to be back in the day when it first started in the 90s.
But what it really is is all of those social drivers of health
you know, housing insecurity, food insecurity, transportation barriers, financial barriers, all those barriers to getting health care, that team and department can take care of those individuals and be of love and support for them.
And it's a person, right?
It's a person that can help guide them.
So our role in providing health care is that our mission allows us to care for anyone and everyone that walks through our doors.
So it's really important for us to work in tandem with our homeless resource providers because it's our job to get them healthy.
We then need to work with our partners for when they leave us or they're not in our care to know that then they have the extra support that they need.
You know, there's a lot of folks that we serve every day in our hospitals that are getting surgery, that are going through cancer care, that are having babies, that are homeless.
And I think that's the other big misconception that I do a lot of work internally of saying, I think we think that if you're on house, you don't know how to access care.
And that's not true.
They are.
They're having surgery.
It's just, then we do all these things for them and we might not have known.
Then what?
How can we support them and make sure that they don't come back into us for an infection?
That they are getting all the supports that they need to have a successful
um baby delivery and you know that the baby's healthy and a lot of people like I said are on dialysis or cancer care so we just that that's extra support that they need right
right your health doesn't pause just because of your housing situation right
No, and you've got to work through that.
There's a lot of people living on the that are on house that are diabetic.
So then restoring your medication, right?
You
need that.
How can we help you?
And then also just making sure our staff is educated and knowing that it's not a compliance issue.
It's the fact that where are they going to access those things?
How are they going to keep their incision clean if they don't have access to running water?
Well, hopefully you can catch up on your sleep overnight tonight.
But
yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
That's okay.
You know, honestly, it works out just fine.
And then, you know, I got a phone call with you.
That's the start of my day.
So I can't think of a better way.
Well, Laura, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Have a good one.
You too.
That is Laura Nikowsky, who's a community health manager for SSM Health Greater Fond du Lac.
and we appreciate her telling us about the point in time count.
