OUTREACH SPECIALISTS, NOT OFFICERS, BETTER FOR HOMELESS
Although homelessness sometimes seems like an unsolvable problem, right now there is strong political alignment across the region to do everything we can to get people off the streets and into homes. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria recently announced new approaches to addressing encampments and the county of San Diego just created a new Department of Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities.
Housing First has long been the model that elected officials and service providers have embraced because it prioritizes placing someone into a permanent home and then focuses on stabilization by providing much needed services.
While housing is always the answer to ending a person’s episode of homelessness, how exactly does someone go from living on the streets to a permanent home? One critical part of this transition is an intervention that is laser-focused on helping people move inside. We call this outreach, and it doesn’t just mean handing out socks and water bottles while offering a list of phone numbers to call. It means providing street-based case management that is personalized, trauma-informed and evidence-based.
Outreach specialists focus on a person’s individual needs, using a person-centered approach to provide appropriate connection to services. That is the approach we take at People Assisting The Homeless (PATH). Outreach teams begin by building trust. That takes time and intention. Trust leads to understanding people’s exact needs as they work towards obtaining a home. Those needs could be securing documents, making medical appointments, storing belongings, arranging transportation between appointments, enrolling in services or all of the above.
Whatever the need, teams are there to help people navigate the complex social services network around them.
This approach has proven to be a successful model across the state and particularly in San Diego County. In 2020, the Mid-City Outreach Program, which employs two dedicated outreach team members in North Park and City Heights, served 181 individuals, enrolled 64 new people in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), provided temporary housing to 84 people and connected 21 to permanent homes, even among the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This program is successful because it is neighborhood-based. This allows outreach specialists to prioritize assistance with input from the community. Community members let us know where people congregate, what services people need, and which familiar faces are most ready for assistance. Our model has yielded such impactful results that the San Diego
Housing Commission asked PATH to expand coordinated street outreach citywide in alignment with the city’s Community Action Plan on Homelessness. This larger program is newly up and running, and community members are enthusiastic about this coherent, compassionate approach.
The city of La Mesa and PATH recently launched the Homeless Outreach and Mobile Engagement (HOME) Program to better connect those experiencing homelessness to services and housing opportunities. When La Mesa residents call the Police Department’s non-emergency line to report about a person experiencing homelessness, an outreach specialist and a mental health clinician are dispatched instead of a uniformed officer. From October to December alone — just three months — the HOME program responded to 110 service calls routed through LMPD dispatch, made contact with and enrolled 53 adults and three children in services, and connected eight people to temporary or permanent homes.
This outreach model didn’t form in a vacuum. The Regional Task Force on the Homeless brought providers and stakeholders together, including PATH, to create a set of community outreach standards. All providers conducting outreach needed to be on the same page and use data-informed, evidence-based practices.
Beyond using these adopted standards, our program has assembled a team of experienced professionals with backgrounds in social work, mediation and homeless services navigation. Members of our team are clinical social workers, substance use disorder specialists and people with lived experience.
Some of our team members previously served in the military, have been teachers, journalists and volunteer outreach specialists with faith-based organizations. All of our team members are extremely skilled at communicating, conveying empathy and building trusting relationships with people in need. They are multilingual, proficient in languages such as Spanish, Tagalog and Arabic.
Our outreach teams are already forming relationships with the communities they serve. Every day, they are working to get people experiencing homelessness on the path to a permanent home. So, while the central focus of addressing homelessness must remain on building more housing and funding more services, we must also ensure that people living on the streets can actually access them.
A human connection, through individualized outreach, must always remain a priority.
Roberts is the chief executive officer of PATH and PATH Ventures, and a board member of the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless and 211 San Diego. He lives in Downtown San Diego.