What interventions directed to the aggregate level could help resolve local problems related to homelessness? What role should community health nurses play in these interventions?
Community health nurses can act as case-finders and referral sources for the homeless and near-homeless. School nurses can identify and intervene with homeless students or those at risk and can offer educational programs on the needs of this population to the student body. Parish nurses can act as a resource for persons needing shelter and educate the church congregation on the characteristics of this elusive culture.
Have a look to this program:
https://oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/6154/Housing_first:_How_Finland_is_ending_homelessness_.html
The program I'm currently working in has a homeless outreach arm and for us we engage community nursing staff in a reporting/tracking role. They, along with EMS/shelter staff/social workers/ER staff, provide up to date info on these individuals and the problems they're facing. We then build patient files with this information to better direct them to services tailored to their needs such as adult education programs, job placement, housing assistance, etc. We've found success in collecting this data and compiling it into one package, which allows us to integrate all of these independent services ideally, into one cohesive care/recovery plan. Our goal is to bring all these independent entities under a single umbrella, whose output is the recovered stability of the individuals within the local homeless population.