here’s the catch: the odds are very good that you've met someone (maybe even provided clinical care for someone) who was without a home but you didn't know it because they didn't “look homeless.” In a study published this month in the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved (JHCPU), my colleagues and I described the experience of acute care from the perspective of 100 homeless individuals seen in the ED or hospitalized over a 1 year period in New Haven, CT. We found that only 2 in 5 were ever asked about their housing status during the course of their care at the hospital. Not surprisingly, those who were asked were several times more likely to receive high-quality discharge planning based on their needs (e.g. discussions about costs of medications and transportation). Compounding the problem of using the “eyeball test” to determine who has unstable housing, many patients are hesitant to disclose their need for fear of discriminatory care or simply from embarrassment – this may be particularly true for older adults.