barbara. dipietro: i appreciate so may people being here today. shows the importance that housing has on people's health status. the national healthcare for homeless council represents health centers and the homeless patients that they serve, about 250 nationally. over one million patients are being seen in america's health centers each year. of their and breath knees, specifically because of a lack of housing, is really an issue for not only health centers, but for the larger health care industry that we are looking to change. one of the things that might not housing ise is how health care. back in the 1980's, the institute of medicine did a study looking at that impact. they found three major findings. causesthe core health homelessness. typically we were seeing a spiral of people with an injury or illness, unable to work. when you are unable to work, of course the work goes away, you get fired or laid off, o and you can no longer bring in income. soon after that, you can't make rent or mortgage. you move in with friends, pretty soon that doesn'

going to start on my far left with barbara sub or the director of policy at the national -- barbara dipietro active in health care for the homeless of maryland so she has got a multilevel perspective on how to deal with these problems. we would ask barbara to highlight the connection between health care and housing in general why it's important and the opportunities on the state federal and local levels to address it. then we will hear from jennifer ho senior adviser to hud secretary julian castro and she will explain the current federal activities and describe how her agency and others are collaborating on health and housing issues. gretchen hammer district of colorado's policy and housing and colorado's medicaid and chip or grams. we have asked gretchen to tell us about colorado's housing policy and what gets in the way of those efforts and our final panelist's sister adele o'sullivan a family physician and she's the founder of circle the city which is a phoenix nonprofit that brings private and public sectors together to help those experiencing homelessness and illness. sister adele will