Gundersen-supported Non-Profit Aims to Give Unsheltered People a Home
Thanks to the help of Gundersen Health System, a non-profit organization in La Crosse is housing some of the area’s most vulnerable residents and breaking down the barriers between them and the healthcare system.
Established in 2021, Karuna – the Buddhist term for “compassion” – strives to elevate the dignity of unsheltered people in La Crosse by not only meeting their basic needs of shelter and food, but by providing a foundation on which they can turn their lives around and “build a life worth living.”
From the beginning, Gundersen was there to help.
To establish the organization, Sandy Brekke, a senior consultant for the Office of Population Health and member of Gundersen’s street medicine team, helped Karuna executive director Julie McDermid file the appropriate paperwork, and Gundersen and others provided financial backing to get it off the ground. The dream of Karuna, Brekke says, is to get those in the community at the highest risk of morbidity off the street. La Crosse has a growing “chronic” unsheltered population, made up of individuals with severe mental health and substance abuse issues, as well as those who’ve been served by housing programs but have returned to homelessness.
Karuna is staffed 24 hours a day and has a full-time case manager/care coordinator to help coordinate services received and suggest those that could provide further benefit. Gundersen’s street medicine team makes weekly stops at the home, checking in with residents and attending to their medical needs.
“For the first time, this group of people is connecting to healthcare consistently, connecting to social services,” Brekke says. “A lot of these people are people we’ve seen on the streets, so now we’re going to continue to follow them and continue to work to integrate them.”
Established in 2021, Karuna – the Buddhist term for “compassion” – strives to elevate the dignity of unsheltered people in La Crosse by not only meeting their basic needs of shelter and food, but by providing a foundation on which they can turn their lives around and “build a life worth living.”
From the beginning, Gundersen was there to help.
To establish the organization, Sandy Brekke, a senior consultant for the Office of Population Health and member of Gundersen’s street medicine team, helped Karuna executive director Julie McDermid file the appropriate paperwork, and Gundersen and others provided financial backing to get it off the ground. The dream of Karuna, Brekke says, is to get those in the community at the highest risk of morbidity off the street. La Crosse has a growing “chronic” unsheltered population, made up of individuals with severe mental health and substance abuse issues, as well as those who’ve been served by housing programs but have returned to homelessness.
Karuna is staffed 24 hours a day and has a full-time case manager/care coordinator to help coordinate services received and suggest those that could provide further benefit. Gundersen’s street medicine team makes weekly stops at the home, checking in with residents and attending to their medical needs.
“For the first time, this group of people is connecting to healthcare consistently, connecting to social services,” Brekke says. “A lot of these people are people we’ve seen on the streets, so now we’re going to continue to follow them and continue to work to integrate them.”
