Downtown Homeless Services Team
The Downtown Homeless Services Team is funded and staffed by the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) and is a partnership between Pathways to Housing, a local non-profit organization that addresses homelessness, the DowntownDC BID’s Safety/Hospitality and Maintenance staff (SAMs), and the Metropolitan Police Department. In an effort to address the root causes of homelessness, Pathways believes outreach services are provided not to maintain homelessness, but to achieve the goal of finding permanent housing solutions for people living on Downtown streets.
2013 Homeless Services Outreach
The BID conducts quarterly homeless counts to provide an overall snapshot of homeless individuals within the Downtown DC area. In January 2013, the (BID) reestablished daytime homeless counts. These daytime counts aims to capture the overall number of literally homeless within the downtown area of DC and include those who are forced to leave shelter during the daytime hours.
Summary of FY 2012 Homeless Services
The BID currently funds the equivalent of four full-time street outreach specialists and an outreach manager. Outreach staff’s goals are to engage people experiencing homelessness in parks, alleyways, and on sidewalks within the BID. During and after the initial meeting, outreach staff members attempt to build trust and rapport to work with the homeless person to meet basic needs, improve physical and emotional health, increase use of available services, and procure affordable housing within the District of Columbia. Essentially, the Pathways street outreach specialists are nonjudgmental and empathetic guides who help people find their way through the social service system. They offer services where homeless persons are physically located in the community, meaning outdoors and not where they are kept waiting in office buildings.
Street outreach staff also responds to concerns about people experiencing homelessness in the BID from police, other social service providers, business owners, workers, residents, and Downtown visitors. When medical or psychiatric crises occur, outreach staff intervenes when appropriate and follows-up to ensure seamless medical or psychiatric care is provided and individuals transition back into the community. This serves the dual propose of addressing a homeless crisis situation with a trained specialist while allowing law enforcement resources to focus on other priorities.
Downtown Homeless Services Team highlights for FY 2012 (October 1, 2011-September 30, 2012) include:
- Contact with 409 people experiencing homelessness in Downtown, many of whom were engaged several times –an average of 4.5 visits per person.
- Assisted 26 people in obtaining their own housing, or connected them with family or friends. The outreach staff often provided security deposits and first month’s rent to increase the likelihood that apartments could be leased successfully.
- Identified 11 vulnerable veterans experiencing homelessness for Pathways’ new permanent, supportive housing program for veterans. One veteran lived on the same bench in the BID for more than 15 months.
- Hired a new director of outreach, Will Connelly, on April 30, 2012, to lead the BID outreach team.
- Hired a licensed social worker to add weekend homeless outreach coverage.
- Added a psychiatric resident from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital to provide street-based services.
- Developed relationships with the Church of the Epiphany and First Congregational United Church of Christ to access affordable office and parking spaces for the outreach team as well as shower facilities for people experiencing homelessness.
The outreach team works in concert with the BID’s Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST). HOST members are part of the BID’s SAM team, which includes approximately 80 SAMs, who work to ensure that Downtown DC is clean, safe, and friendly. The HOST team consists of 12 specially-trained SAMs who are dispatched directly to address calls related to homelessness and who work closely with the Pathways outreach team. The Pathways outreach team also meets with HOST members bi-monthly to provide ongoing training and collaboration.
Outreach Service Data for FY 2012
- Engagements: 1,856 total
Engagements are encounters or visits made on the street by outreach workers. Each engagement is entered into a Pathways database that logs demographic information, a narrative of the encounter, and information about services provided and next steps/goals of the person engaged. Most visits occur during workweek daylight hours. However, Pathways recently expanded its coverage to include Sunday mornings as well to meet people who attend services and eat at the Church of the Epiphany.
- Daytime engagements on the streets, parks, alleys: 1,796
- Nighttime engagements: 42
- Unduplicated people engaged: 409 (average 4.5 visits per person)
- Follow-up with property managers/businesses:18
- Basic Services: 2,255 total
Basic services usually help increase the level of trust between the person experiencing homelessness and the outreach specialist. After addressing basic survival and meeting basic needs of food, clothing, transportation, and identification, the worker and person experiencing homelessness can focus on partnering to access housing, medical care, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and other services.
- Meals and food assistance: 1,699
- Showers: 70
- Clothing: 348
- Transportation: 98
- Help obtaining documentation (ID, birth certificates, etc.): 40
- Medical and Mental Health Services: 231 total
The outreach team, in partnership with health care and mental health providers, delivers medical and mental health services to people experiencing homelessness in Downtown. Pathways manages a Unity Health Clinic on site that can be accessed on a walk-in basis. Nurse practitioners, nurses, and psychiatrists from the clinic often accompany street outreach workers to engage people on the streets. The Department of Mental Health also adds a psychiatric resident to the outreach team bi-monthly to provide these important services.
- Pathways psychiatrist and nurse visits (on street/at office): 93
- Linkage to other medical and mental health providers: 76
- Hospital visits: 20
- Detoxification: 8
- Psychiatric crisis response: 19
- Medical crisis response: 9
- Legal advocacy (court visits, testimony): 6
- Benefits/Entitlements Services: 78 total
Linking people experiencing homelessness to entitlements helps build income and resources that make it easier to access housing, health care, and meet basic needs. Increasing access to these benefits not only helps increase self-sufficiency but also can result in a major step toward recovery from illness and homelessness. Street outreach specialists are specially trained in SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery, or SOAR, to assist with Supplemental Income Security and Social Security Disability Income applications.
- Social Security Disability and Medicaid/Medicare: 54
- Food stamps: 24
- Housing Services: 36 total
Housing is the solution to homelessness. Finding a home is almost always the first request when encountering people on the street. However, affordable housing in the District is very difficult to obtain. Increasing access to affordable housing will require a broad, community-wide effort that makes best use of available resources, pools additional funding, and stresses accountability and a return on investment.
- Housing placements: 17
- Housing stability assistance (security deposit, first month’s rent, hotel stays): 8
- Relocation (return to family or link to out-of-state housing): 11
- Networking/Administrative: 120 total
Outreach specialists are ineffective without their relationships and networks. Effective relationships help increase access to basic needs and resources and ensure that outreach staff members have the most current and accurate information on eligibility requirements, funding issues, and opportunities for collaboration. Outreach staff works directly with two specially-trained MPD officers, as the officers are on the front-lines and often interact with people experiencing homelessness.
- Law enforcement consultation: 66
- Community presentations: 15
- Community meetings (homeless service coordination, DMH, the Department of Human Services, etc.): 39
Looking Ahead to FY 2013
The next fiscal year presents many challenges and opportunities for the Downtown Homeless Services Team. The biggest challenge is the lack of affordable housing in the District and surrounding areas. Many people who sleep on the streets and in shelters have a fixed, limited income due to physical and/or mental illnesses. Others have no income at all or work regularly but still cannot afford fair market rent. The DC Housing Authority distributes housing subsidies through programs such as the Local Rental Subsidy Program and Section 8 to fill the gap left by what a person can afford and what the market requires. However, the demand for these important subsidies far outweighs the supply, and it can take years for an applicant to come to the top of the waiting list. Meanwhile, the person toils on the street waiting for these life-saving resources.
Housing ends homelessness, so the aforementioned housing shortage is a main priority for the upcoming fiscal year. Street outreach specialists are uniquely positioned to witness the effects of inadequate housing. The Downtown Homeless Services Team hopes to use this unique perspective to lead an effort to bring more attention to the housing needs of individuals in the DowntownDC BID area. A public-private partnership that raises funds for rental payments for vulnerable individuals living in Downtown could be linked to existing street outreach staff who are able to assess needs, coordinate care, and assist in identifying and accessing housing.
Other goals for the next fiscal year include networking with business owners and employment programs that could hire people experiencing homelessness. It is very difficult to search and compete for employment without stable housing, but many people persevere and could be connected quickly before life on the street diminishes hope.
Finally, the outreach team hopes to continue receiving support in the form of donated clothing, hygiene items, and program funds to increase outreach staffing. Many thanks to individuals and organizations who contributed this year, including Gifts for the Homeless, Church of the Epiphany, First Congregational United Church of Christ, St. John’s Church, and Keys for the Homeless Foundation.