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

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  • Who's leading Covid-19 outreach among the homeless? The homeless themselves.

    In the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, local community members are leading the effort to reach out to those experiencing homelessness during the coronavirus pandemic. This effort has been successful in coordinating and distributing testing that is accessible to the population. As the director of the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations explains, “any public health response that does not center the voices of people who have lived the experience of homelessness is going to come up with the wrong solution.”

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  • Swords to Plowshares Providing In-Person Veterans Services During Pandemic

    A drastic decrease in homelessness among veterans in San Francisco has been credited to the efforts of Swords to Plowshares, which is a veterans services group. Wraparound services helped veterans find temporary housing, permanent housing, mental health services, and help finding jobs.

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  • Veteran homelessness in Chittenden County has dropped significantly. Here's what it took.

    Canal Street Veterans Housing was instrumental in ending veteran homelessness in Chittenden County, Vermont. The program provided two years of transitional housing for veterans and their families, job training services, and mental health care. An emphasis was put on providing mental and physical health screenings to help those dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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  • Where Housing, Not Jails, Is the Answer to Homelessness

    Even while Los Angeles police criminalize homelessness with "sweeps" to clear encampments from public property, state and local programs have helped thousands of people find housing and receive services like counseling and criminal record expungement. Programs like LA DOOR and Project Roomkey use public-health and housing-first approaches to address people's underlying problems rather than subject them to endless cycles of arrest and incarceration, all of which cost far more than the helpful strategies while remaining far less effective. Street outreach is done without police escorts, to build trust.

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  • Unhoused: Status Quo

    Housing First has successfully been implemented in cities across the world to reduce the number of people sleeping on the streets but in Boulder County, the approach has not been nearly as effective. The lack of affordable housing has resulted in just a small percentage of unhoused people accessing a place to live, while services for those who do not make the cut have been drastically reduced. While plans to create more affordable housing are in place, the Housing First approach in Boulder County has led to a reduction in homelessness services and only one homeless shelter stands.

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  • There's Still Hope

    There's Still Hope provides temporary housing for members of the LGBTQ community - focusing especially on transgender women. Participants in the outreach program are given housing, a grocery stipend, transportation passes, and skills training that will help obtain employment. They are also expected to do their part by avoiding sex work and substance abuse and are connected with services that help them towards those goals.

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  • Managing scarcity

    In Boulder, Colorado those working to address the increasing rate of homelessness are reallocating resources to support longterm housing options as opposed to the traditional temporary services – such as shelters. Although there are challenges to this approach and it's too early to gauge the longterm reality of this approach, early results from the method have shown that consolidating resources has reduced operational costs while housing over 450 people.

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  • Calling home: Sheltering in hotels to escape coronavirus, Acadiana's homeless got back on their feet

    In southwestern Louisiana, the Acadiana Regional Coalition on Homelessness and Housing wrangled 19 hotels into a makeshift network during the pandemic to house people experiencing homelessness. With help from Beacon Community Connections' counselors, the 456 people who entered the program found the stability and services they needed to connect with government benefits and, in some cases, find jobs. The program's Housing First approach, to admit the chronically unhoused without preconditions like sobriety, creates disciplinary challenges but put many on a path to a better life.

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  • Booking homeless Portlanders into jail is endless, expensive cycle that arrests don't curb, but housing does

    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.

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  • Shipping containers in Los Angeles becoming homes for the homeless

    Recycled shipping containers ae providing affordable housing options to families and veterans experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. Wraparound services on site help tenants with everything they need to stay housed, such as how to pay rent, access healthcare and find transportation. Container housing has been used in several cities across the country due to the convenience and low construction costs.

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