Ben King, a clinical assistant professor at the Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine at University of Houston, has always been passionate about public health and helping vulnerable communities. He also is an advocate for ending homelessness, serving on the National Health Care for the Homeless Council's Research Committee.
What first sparked your interest in public health?
“My first job career was inpatient mental health, psychiatric units. I had a lot of exposure during college and the two years afterwards, seeing how porous and mostly unhelpful the crisis system is for mental health in America. I got to work in New York, Austin, and even Honolulu for a while doing inpatient psych work. I became really disillusioned with what I was seeing. Public health was a way to try to answer some of the big questions I had about what was broken. It was to answer that question, how is this system not working for people going through it?”
You're drawn to helping vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. What drew you to work in that area?
“I started working in a free clinic here in Houston. It really changed the way I thought about how healthcare could be delivered. It was a space where people who were usually rejected and turned away or at least derided by the healthcare system were given compassionate and thoughtful care plans. We would spend over an hour with each patient, which is unheard of in a normal clinic setting. It was partly better care than these folks could get anywhere else. I felt encouraged by that, and I also realized that I didn’t have to go abroad to find good care systems and to find people who were dramatically under-resourced.”
How do you think Houston can continue to help its homelessness problem?
“We know what works. Houston is having more success than almost any other city in the country. What they do is unlike any other city I’ve spoken to. The whole approach of giving 30 days of engagement, rapport building, and then a tight window where you try to get every single person in that encampment into housing with services. The answer to this is housing with wraparound case management that can support people while they transition and heal from the trauma they’re experiencing. It takes time for them to heal, recover, and rebalance. They need services and they need to be placed in housing first, and then have everything else wrapped around them and available to them.”
