Reaching into a void: For mayor's team of street crusaders, getting the chronically homeless into housing requires patience as they battle their addictions -- and persistence if they relapse

San Francisco officials converted an abandoned school on the Mission’s skid row into a special kind of shelter with the means to take chronically homeless adults from the street and entire encampment communities, then navigate them into housing, without the traditional, degrading rules and regulations of other shelters. It’s become one of the most closely watched homeless-related projects in the country, and Seattle is one of the cities looking to potentially replicate their model to help address the homelessness crisis.

Homes for All Veterans, a program within the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Human Services, recently began training volunteers to walk the city's streets in search of homeless veterans, with the goal of effectively eliminate veteran homelessness by the end of the year. If successful, advocates say the push to end veteran homelessness could be the first step in addressing the city's larger, chronically homeless population.

An emergency shelter, a housing nonprofit, the City of Boise, and the Boise Police Department came together to coordinate efforts and give assistance to the growing number of residents experiencing homelessness and living in RVs and cars around the city. The “Street Outreach Support” program involves knocking on the vehicle doors and offering temporary housing and medical attention to those who need it. While there are a smattering of reasons that people are living in their vehicles, the city is searching for a more permanent solution to getting people access to affordable housing.

A nonprofit called Breaking Ground has paired up with the Brooklyn Public Library to provide social and administrative services to New York’s homeless population. This unique partnership works collaboratively to build engagement, trust and a housing action plan for homeless people; while the librarians help patrons gather practical housing resources and sift through complex bureaucratic matters, social workers build positive community rapport, and provide more holistic, psychosocial assistance with individual cases.

A study on four homeless individuals showed that they cost thousands of dollars, plus hours of city officials' time. Outreach Fort Collins aims to decrease these numbers by recognizing the importance of relationships and checking in on homeless individuals as a neighborhood resource for people to turn to if there is a concern (rather than calling the police).

The VA has shifted its approach to ending homelessness among veterans. Now, a place to live--more than drug treatment or mental health counseling--is considered the starting point for helping a soldier who is struggling to cope with life after discharge.

Solider On is an organization that serves homeless veterans in 18 counties across central New York. Of their 180 employees, 92 used to be homeless themselves and another 15 are veterans. They travel everywhere to find people who need help and then work with them to get anything they need, such as housing or employment. Some participants testify to how much the program has changed their lives.

Los Angeles County’s Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement (HOME) program uses street psychiatry to get psychiatric medication to people experiencing homelessness in an effort to get them a step closer to housing. The HOME team has 223 full-time staff members and served 1,919 people last year, 22% of whom ended the year housed.

In Washington, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority distributes vouchers to veterans experiencing homelessness that they can use to pay for housing. The organization also connects veterans with local resources to help them manage the process.

Temporary housing providing drug treatment and other services to people experiencing homelessness appears to cut the chances that people arrested in Portland on minor charges will cycle repeatedly through the criminal justice system. In 2019, 250 people living in transitional housing were booked into jail, versus nearly 3,700 people still living on the streets. The rearrest rate for people living on the street is 87%, but 30 points lower for people with housing. Portland officials have been slow to provide alternatives to arrests and jail since a report in 2017 that most arrestees in Portland are homeless.