- Missoula, Montana. For KPAX, the local CBS affiliate, Kierra Sam reports on the city’s new Homeless Outreach Team, which is composed of five trained outreach workers who operate out of a local homelessness shelter. The team provides people experiencing homelessness with connection to medical care, housing services, and food-assistance programs. The team also provides “gear for survival” including “water, food, light clothing … sunscreen, bug spray… all those normal things that we all use everyday.”
- Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Megan Raposa reports for Sioux Falls Simplified on the city’s homeless outreach program, which launched this summer to give “people an alternative to calling the police when they see someone [who is experiencing homelessness] in need of assistance,” and to provide a variety of services that range “from connecting someone [to a] medical clinic to offering a water bottle” to “wraparound services that go far beyond the immediate need.” A city council member also underscored that the team “lowers the burden on our law enforcement community.”
- Oahu, Hawaii. For KITV, Oahu’s local ABC affiliate, ‘A’ali’i Dukelow reports on Achieve Zero, a new city-funded homelessness outreach pilot program in the city of Wahiawa on the island of Oahu that provides people experiencing homelessness with connections to a wide range of services including housing and rental assistance programs, medical care and drug treatment, financial aid, and even help with paperwork for vital records like birth certificates and identification cards. The teams, composed of a case manager and a trained outreach worker, are seeing early success: Since the pilot launched in June, 70% of the people whom the team has helped have returned for follow-up services, which is “significant because it dispels the myth that unhoused people are resistant to services— they just need to be delivered in the right way.”
