A portion of Woodhull Hospital's sprawling parking lot on the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has a new job.

Instead of storing cars, the land has been turned into a residence for formerly homeless individuals who had been cycling in and out of the city's public hospitals, including the one it is now adjacent to.

The $29 million Woodhull Residence, which officially opened Wednesday, serves 54 residents who had been referred by social workers at Woodhull and other city hospitals. The rest of the building's 35 studio apartments will go to low-income New Yorkers.

Rosa Gil — the former director of Woodhull Hospital and the current president of Comunilife, a nonprofit that will manage the residence and provide supportive services like counseling and rehab — said years ago the idea of a hospital providing housing for its patients was not part of the conversation.

"But now we do know that this is a critical component of how we want to really diminish the social determinants of health," she said. 

Experts say that supportive housing arrangements improve mental and physical health by removing the stress of homelessness while also providing additional mental health services.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, the head of NYC Health and Hospitals, the city's public hospital system, said he hopes to turn underused parking lots at other facilities into supportive housing in the future. 

"We have a cure for homelessness. It's called a home," he said. "It's 100 percent effective it has no side-effects."

He added, "The important question is, now that we've proven that we can do it how can we do a lot more of it."