Austin's outreach program HOST helps thousands experiencing homelessness

Austin’s outreach program HOST helps thousands experiencing homelessness

Since the city of Austin's outreach program Homeless Outreach Street Team or HOST started three years ago, they've helped more than 7,000 people.

AUSTIN, Texas - Conversations centered around homelessness are still ongoing in Central Texas. In the meantime, the city has a street team to help thousands of people before their needs escalate.

Since the city of Austin's outreach program Homeless Outreach Street Team or HOST started three years ago, they've helped more than 7,000 people.

The team says their goal is to build trust with those experiencing homelessness and to connect them to services that can help bring them closer to long-term stability and recovery.

What looks like a typical day for this first responder is much more. HOST dedicates time to help those experiencing homelessness and connects them to medical and mental health services before situations escalate.

“Folks from Integral Care, the Austin Police Department, Austin EMS, the Downtown Austin community court and what they are is a team that's dedicated to engaging those that are experiencing homelessness primarily in the downtown area and West campus area linking them to services that address needs that end up helping folks to get housing,” ATCEMS assistant chief Andy Hofmeister said.

The multi-agency outreach program works to address the needs of people before they're placed in an emergency room or psychiatric facility.

“Individuals that don't have an ID," Homeister said. "Those who lost their ID you can't even grab a hotel room without one. or buy alcohol or a pack of cigarettes without one.”

ATCEMS provided a video to show what a typical day would look like for HOST.

“It's the small but critical items that HOST is best acquainted with getting them connected with and those have been what we've identified over the years like if this person can get their ID they can get their birth certificate so they can get an apartment or bank account so they can get their social security benefits deposited,” Hofmeister said.

It started as a three-month pilot program in July 2016. Since then the team has made 7,327 visits to people living on the streets in Downtown Austin. HOST says they support up to about 1200 people per year.

“Proactive engagement I think actually getting out there and if there's a certain part of town we wanna focus on and get team members on the ground and have them focus on or around the ARCH or different locations,” Hofmeister said.

HOST services the downtown area between Mopac and I-35 from West 29th Street to Lady Bird Lake.

“We know and we see where the folks are so it's not uncommon to see a high concentration of folks where they're experiencing homelessness,” he said.

HOST says they just hit their third fiscal year and will be able to assess soon whether or not they need to add more people to their nine-person team.