Federal Grant Award Summary

Denver Health and Hospital Authority, operating as Denver Health, received a $346,474 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professionals under the Primary Care Training and Enhancement (PCTE) program (CFDA 93.884), effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031. The grant supports the development and implementation of a street medicine curriculum and training program within the Denver Community Health Services Family Medicine Residency (DCHS FMR) in partnership with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH). This initiative responds to Denver's significant homelessness challenge, which ranked fifth nationally in 2023 and experienced the largest year-over-year increase (30.4%) among major U.S. cities.

The primary deliverables include the co-development and implementation of required four-week street medicine rotations for postgraduate years 2 and 3 residents, with additional elective opportunities for third-year residents. The curriculum integrates didactic and clinical training with interprofessional team-based care models, enabling residents to work alongside behavioral health clinicians, dentists, optometrists, case managers, and other disciplines. Training emphasizes management of chronic medical conditions, mental health diagnoses, and substance use disorders while addressing social determinants of health affecting the unhoused population. By partnering with CCH, the program ensures residents receive supervised clinical experience from qualified primary care physician preceptors while serving Denver's diverse unhoused population across various housing situations and support settings.