Colorado Probes Claims of Cash Incentives Linked to Medicaid Services for Homeless Residents

By: David Migoya | Colorado Politics

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series. Read about how home health in Colorado is a complex setupand about the group On Going HHC.

They call it “the program.”

For the past four years, dozens of homeless people in the Denver metro area have been recruited to live rent-free in suburban houses sprinkled across Aurora — not the stereotypical homeless shelter-type housing one might think, but rather neat homes in middle-class communities with mortgages.

But living there comes with a hitch: a requirement that participants be on Medicaid and have at least one prescribed medication — all must first visit the same doctor to get a cursory exam and a prescription — administered by a home health company for which the doctor is medical director, according to interviews of more than a dozen people who participated.

And lest the free housing not be enough inducement to attract and keep the homeless in place, there is a thrice-weekly payment of $50 with no strings attached or rules on how or where to spend it. The money is called a “donation” and was first paid in cash for months, then came in digital payments via a cellphone app, and now is in gift cards that many recipients say they convert to cash.

Sometimes, program participants didn’t even live in one of the houses, receiving their “home health” benefit — and the payments — at locations that included McDonald’s restaurants, coffee shops and even motel rooms, according to interviews.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT COLORADO POLITICS