Heartland Health Outreach (HHO) is a partner organization of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights, a comprehensive human service agency serving Chicago and the Midwest since 1888. Heartland began providing homeless health care in 1984, when it was the lead agency for Chicago's application to the Robert Wood Johnson/Pew Memorial Trust Health Care for the Homeless demonstration program. Over time, health care services were expanded to include mental health services in 1987 and HIV/AIDS services in 1989. In 1994, HHO established Access to Community Care and Effective Services and Supports (ACCESS), a federal program targeting people who were mentally ill and homeless. In 2000, we opened Pathways Home, whose mission is to serve people who are homeless with a serious mental illness and substance use disorder. All programs are founded on the principles and philosophy of harm reduction. Out of our commitment to promoting harm reduction, HHO founded the Midwest Harm Reduction Institute in 2005. Since then, MHRI has promoted harm reduction practice through training and consultation, providing an average of 20 workshops annually to mental health, substance abuse, and housing providers locally, regionally, and nationally. In collaboration with other MHRI partners, we have developed an extensive curriculum that ranges from teaching people about the nature of drugs to substance use management, motivational interviewing, and the nature of trauma-informed treatment.

Heartland Health Outreach's (HHO) mission is to improve the health of individuals and communities who lack access to health care through the provision of culturally competent, multidisciplinary services designed to prevent illness and improve physical, mental and social well-being, and through advocacy that promotes the right to access comprehensive, integrated systems of care.

HHOs Mental Health & Addiction Services are specialized programs developed for participant populations who are most often characterized as disenfranchised, disengaged, impoverished, or discriminated against. The populations at present include people who are homeless and who suffer from a serious mental illness who may have a co-occurring substance use disorder, people with multiple or lengthy psychiatric hospitalizations, and people who are refugees and in need of mental health treatment. These are people for whom either no services exist, or mainstream mental health services do not meet their needs. All of the services are community based, culturally and linguistically appropriate, and designed to promote human dignity, protect human rights and empower the individual, couple, or family seeking treatment. Services are multifaceted, nontraditional, and consumer oriented. The service model integrates and coordinates mental health care with primary health care, substance use treatment, housing, vocational services, and obtaining benefits and entitlements. Mental Health & Addiction Services operates on the belief that all people who need mental health treatment are to receive services regardless of their legal status and of their ability to pay. Further, all residential and outpatient Mental Health and Addiction Services programs are committed to accepting participants regardless of their substance use history, their ability or desire to abstain from alcohol or other drugs, and their criminal history. Programs do not discharge those who relapse, those who seek residential substance use treatment or psychiatric hospitalization, or those who are incarcerated for fewer than 30 days. Participants are barred only for violent rule infractions. HHO has expertise in street outreach, intensive case management, and coordination of psychiatric treatment with rehabilitative training in social and daily life skills. As a result, we are able to offer a continuum of outpatient and housing services for people who are homeless and mentally ill, many of whom also have substance use disorders. HHO staff have also been leaders in cross training among homeless, mental health, and substance use service providers. We also spearheaded the establishment of the Illinois Division of Mental Health's Metro North Network MISA (Mental Illness/Substance Abuse) Subcommittee, a consortium of representatives from mental health and substance abuse agencies invested in coordinating care within and among agencies on Chicago's north side. HHO also houses the Illinois Co-occurring Center of Excellence, which is charged with training agencies throughout the state in Integrated Dual Disorders Treatment. And, as noted above, we founded and currently lead the Midwest Harm Reduction Institute.