Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: The number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night increased by 1.1 percent from 643,067 in January 2009 to 649,917 in January 2010. California, New York, and Florida accounted for 40 percent of the total homeless population. A total of 79,446 family households, including 241,951 persons in families, were homeless as of January 2010. Since 2009, the number of homeless families increased 1.2 percent, and the number of homeless persons in families increased 1.6 percent.
The number of people who were chronically homeless, persons with severe disabilities and long-term homeless histories, decreased 1 percent between 2009 and 2010, from 110,917 to 109,812. Out of those homeless individuals in a shelter, 34.7 percent suffered from substance abuse and 26.2 percent had a serious mental illness. Mobile medical health care services can effectively reach homeless populations and provide primary care, screenings, dental care, medications, behavioral health care, immunizations, lab tests, case management, benefits assistance and assessments, and triage.
Mobile medical health care services can provide health care to homeless adults and children in urban, rural, and suburban areas. The average cost of a visit to a provider of mobile medical health care services is significantly below the average cost of an emergency department visit. Visiting a mobile medical health care service instead of the emergency department can result in a cost savings of more than $800 per visit.