Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Inside One City's Efforts to Convert Motels into Affordable Housing

    Neglected motels are being renovated to shelter the unhoused population in Fresno. The state-funded initiative known as Project Homekey has invested in a run down neighborhood while providing housing, which was crucial during the pandemic.

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  • Police response to mentally ill people is under scrutiny. Denver may offer way forward.

    As the nation’s largest city to embrace an alternative approach to responding to 911 calls in non-violent personal crises, Denver finished the first year of its pilot program having never needed police backup when its medics and social workers handled problems on the streets. About a third of calls to STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) came from police who saw STAR as a better responder to certain calls. In about 40% of calls, people in mental health or substance use crises received the services they needed without involving arrests or conflicts with police.

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  • Phoenix hotel turned homeless shelter is seeing success

    The Central Arizona Shelter Services, with help from the City of Phoenix and federal CARES Act COVID relief money, contracted a local hotel to turn 100 rooms into a shelter for the growing number of seniors experiencing homelessness. Known as Project Haven, the rooms help people remain socially distanced and restore people’s dignity. The success of the model brought in other partners, such as behavioral health services and on-site caseworkers to assist with job searches, family reunification, or rental assistance. In the first year, 70% of the 217 seniors it served found positive housing outcomes.

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  • ECHO seeing success 6 months into motel-turned-shelter program

    ECHO runs an emergency shelter in a converted motel that helps get people off the street and into safety. They also run a 90-day program that provides access to services like mental health support and job placement. Housed 500 people in six months and helped dozens of people find long-term housing.

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  • Homeward Bound is removing the barriers between single mothers and a new career

    Homeward Bound Peterborough helps single mothers overcome their most common causes of homelessness: limited access to housing, childcare, and education. Based on a program in Toronto that has helped hundreds, the Peterborough program is serving its first cohort of seven families by providing them with affordable apartments, childcare, free college tuition, job readiness programs, and other services. The admissions criteria are strict, because even with the help it's hard to juggle a family and school while parenting alone.

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  • Wichita's homeless providers navigate congregate living in age of social distancing

    Wichita secured $850,376 of federal grant money through the CARES Act, which it is distributing to homeless shelters and other organizations that work with people experiencing homelessness to slow the spread of COVID-19. Local providers connect with each other to share their best practices for stopping the virus, including taking temperatures, mandatory hand-washing, and mask wearing, and making sure that beds meet social distancing guidelines. None of their clients in homeless shelters have tested positive so far.

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  • Affordable housing expansion happening on Indy's west side

    With 2,300 people on a wait list for affordable housing, the city of Indianapolis pumped $3 million into a vouchers program for 2021 that has already housed 672 people. Some of the vouchers are set aside for military veterans and their families experiencing homelessness. The city contracted with a national affordable-housing developer and property manager. The housing market has priced many people out of affordable, safe options. A new 61-unit development is under construction, with more homes dedicated to reducing the numbers of unhoused veterans.

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  • A couch is not a home: Where the hidden homeless get housing vouchers

    Boston used vouchers to help "doubled-up families" – those with school-age children sharing crowded apartments with other families – jump the line of people waiting for subsidized housing and get their own homes. Schools identify children living in this limbo status that often isn't visible or recognized as homelessness. They referred families to FamilyAid Boston, which put about 300 families into their own homes. Doubling up, which often violates leases and can quickly put families on the streets, is the most common homeless status of public-school students.

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  • San Francisco's new homeless street teams make progress, garner praise

    San Francisco's Street Crisis Response Team is a pilot project meant to divert 911 calls for mental health emergencies from police to new teams of mobile counselors. Though it started with only one team and later expanded to four, the project in less than six months took 20% of the eligible calls. More than half the clients were helped on the streets, while most others were hospitalized or connected with shelters. The city is proposing a major expansion of this and related teams aimed at reducing the reliance on police in non-violent situations.

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  • Hotels for those left unhoused by wildfires

    Hotels and motels are being converted into free housing for people experiencing housing instability in Oregon. Project Turnkey is a state-funded initiative that buys potential housing units and puts local organizations in charge of running them. The program was a response to displaced victims of wildfires that tore through a number of communities in 2020 but future plans include housing people experiencing homelessness for any reason.

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