photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

The Homeless Response Team held a lunch for people experiencing homelessness at Sandra Shaw Community Health Park on Wednesday, May 14, 2025.

Lawrence’s Homeless Response Team has been recognized with an award from a health care consulting organization for its approach to serving unsheltered people, reducing health disparities and promoting equity.

KFMC Health Improvement Partners presented the City of Lawrence’s Homeless Response Team with the 2025 Health Equity Innovation Award on Thursday at its Kansas Health Impact Conference in Manhattan, according to a release from KFMC. The release said the award honors an organization or individual who creates innovative approaches to addressing health disparities and advancing equity within a community.

Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the Homeless Solutions Division at the City of Lawrence, said in the release that the award meant a lot to the city’s homelessness team and that it spoke to what their work was all about: meeting people where they are.

“This award belongs to every outreach worker, medical provider, mental health provider and substance use provider on the Homeless Response Team who was brave enough to trust a new and innovative process, one that moves care beyond walls and into the places where it’s needed most,” Bosch-Hastings said in the release.

The release said the award was for the team’s mobile “field-based approach” to serving the homeless.

The Homeless Response Team delivers medical care, mental health services, substance use assessments, harm reduction services, and housing navigation directly to people living outside through its mobile outreach efforts. As the Journal-World reported, in one year, the HRT helped reduce unsheltered homelessness in Lawrence by 63%, and it has also expanded access to overdose prevention and closed critical gaps for those least likely to seek or receive care.

“Each of this year’s Health Equity Innovation Award nominees demonstrated remarkable dedication to advancing health equity in their communities, bringing forward compelling, community-rooted solutions,” Sarah Irsik-Good, president and CEO of KFMC, said in the release. “Lawrence’s Homeless Response Team stood out for its deeply integrated, street-based model that bridges critical gaps in behavioral health and emergency care. Their model is a powerful example of how compassion, innovation, and collaboration can drive scalable and sustainable solutions rooted in dignity and inclusion.”

KFMC, formerly known as the Kansas Foundation for Medical Care, is a health care consulting organization based in Topeka.