The Runners Helping Each Other Get Back on Track

Houston is a leader in ending veteran homelessness, with "an engaged police unit, a seasoned group of social and policy workers, and a city looking to innovate and improve," but that success has not scaled successfully to dealing with all chronic homelessness in the city. To truly solve chronic homelessness, Houston has found that it needs to build relationships with those experiencing homelessness to understand what specific services they need to stay housed.

In Los Angeles, the Host Home program is placing homeless youth in the homes of willing hosts. They share space, but don't necessarily have to share their lives and schedules, providing an opportunity for people to pursue education and jobs in safety as they transition to permanent housing. While the program is just starting out and currently only serves 6 people with its limited scope, the approach is also being implemented in the U.K. and other parts of the United States.

Just outside of Austin, Texas, Community First! Village lives up to its name, emphasizing personal connections and stable relationships while also providing people experiencing homelessness with affordable rents in tiny homes and RVs. The retention rate in the community is 86%, and the Village plans to expand and double its occupancy.

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).

Homelessness can make an individual feel alienated and disconnected from society. Street Soccer USA is an annual tournament in which homeless and underprivileged people from the street are invited to participate. Some participants have been inspired to turn their lives around through the team relationships and support.

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.

The Homeless World Cup is the premier soccer tournament for homeless players. Programs around the world use soccer as a means of building a sense of community, sublimating negative energies, and encouraging personal growth.

San Francisco's Care Not Cash program began in 2004 in response to the city's homelessness crisis. One facet of the program is an outreach team, whose members regularly visit homeless people on the street to connect them to resources such as housing and drug rehabilitation.

The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas and its subsidiary Building Health act as safety nets for uninsured people experiencing homelessness by expanding the definition of healthcare to also include housing, serving about 85,000 people a year. By providing wraparound care and services from help finding housing to legal assistance and education, the groups’ combined efforts helped shrink the rate of uninsured, unhoused people from 16% in 2020 to about 12% now.

The Way Home is a rapid rehousing project designed specifically for LGBTQ+ adults. The program runs on a housing-first model with extremely low barriers for screening people out. This is particular important to address the needs of transgender and gender non-conforming people who have more barriers to employment, which is important to afford long-term housing. Using a $400,000 CARES Act grant, Way Home works with LGBTQ+-friendly landlords, and pays a portion of the rent for 40 LGBTQ+ residents facing homelessness. The program also offers bilingual services