Homeless Pregnant Women Should Be Priority When Considering Housing Resources, Researchers Say
Compared to pregnant women who live in standard housing, homeless pregnant women in San Francisco experience more than double the rate of preterm birth.
The California Health Report:
UCSF Researchers: Homeless Pregnant Women Need Priority Housing Support
Researchers with the University of California, San Francisco, are calling on city and county officials to prioritize all homeless, pregnant women for shelter beds and transitional or subsidized housing. Homeless women in San Francisco must currently have a serious medical condition or wait until their third trimester before they’re considered “high risk” under city and county housing policy, according to a UCSF report. That’s too late to provide them with the stability they need for a healthy pregnancy, and to reduce their risk of preterm birth, researchers said. (Boyd-Barrett, 5/14)