SEARCH Homeless Services

As we continue our work to make homelessness in Houston rare, brief, and nonrecurring, SEARCH has set intermediate goals and benchmarks that will help facilitate our long-term aspirations. Our admittedly ambitious goals for this year are to:

1. Increase the speed out of homelessness (ultimately to 30 days). Engage and move people as quickly as possible from the streets into stable housing.
• Reduce and maintain average speed from enrollment to move-in to less than 60 days.

2. Accelerate positive exits within housing. Transition residents as quickly as possible from supportive services toward independence (ultimately within three years).
• Achieve 80% retention rate among PSH residents (stayed in our PSH program, exited to another permanent destination, or had an otherwise positive exit).

3. Break the cycle of homelessness by investing in the next generation. Set up parents and children enrolled at the House of Tiny Treasures with building blocks for a stronger, more stable future.
• Improve student performance to see at least 80% of our students meet or exceed the benchmarks for children their age.

While we know that as long as poverty exists, there will be people who fall into homelessness, we firmly believe that homelessness is a solvable issue, and success in addressing it will come through making homelessness brief, nonrecurring, and rare.

Brief – making the homeless experience as short as possible. As we strive to engage and move people as quickly as possible from the streets into stable housing, it is our ultimate hope that no one will be homeless for more than 30 days.

Nonrecurring – helping people avoid a return to homelessness.

• Once clients have moved into housing, our ongoing, supportive case management services help them to gain the stability and self-sufficiency that they need to remain housed and to manage their lives without our continued support and assistance.

• At our House of Tiny Treasures preschool, we break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and homelessness by preparing the children to succeed in school and in life and by laying a strong foundation for the future that will keep them from following in their parents’ footsteps.

Rare – true success would mean that we have reached the point where we no longer must focus on addressing homelessness but are able instead to focus on prevention by assisting individuals and families who are on the brink and preventing them from falling into homelessness.

SEARCH’s strategic plan continues to focus on: (a) being a leader and subject matter expert; (b) facilitating the community system’s ending homelessness, and (c) breaking the cycle of homelessness. As we work toward our ultimate vision of a Houston without homelessness, SEARCH’s work is designed to support the community’s collective goals for addressing homelessness in Houston. Over the next three to five years, these goals include:

• Effectively ending chronic homelessness. Having already effectively ended veteran homelessness, the community’s focus remains on ending chronic homelessness, a goal that is within reach but continues to elude us.
• Ending family and youth homelessness. Once we are able to declare an effective end to chronic homelessness, our focus will turn toward ending family and youth homelessness, though this work has already begun.
• Reducing unsheltered homelessness and eliminating encampments. As we continue to tackle chronic homelessness, we as a community are also turning our focus to ending unsheltered homelessness and eliminating the encampments around town.
• Reducing the inflow of people into the homeless services system through diversion, rapid exits, prevention, and preventing institutional discharges into homelessness.
• Expanding housing options and alternatives for more PSH and RRH, for special populations who have higher needs or are especially difficult to house, and for clients who are moving on.

SEARCH brings together and coordinates a broad range of resources to carry out its work:

• Partnership with shelters and other agencies to fill the gaps for individuals struggling to change their lives.
• Subject matter expertise in serving people who are homeless at the system level and providing skilled case management and client support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
• Well-trained, highly-skilled, experienced, and committed staff, including social workers and social service providers, who work one-on-one as case managers for clients facing challenges and obstacles in their lives.
• Evidence-based practices such as motivational interviewing to engage some of Houston’s most challenged men, women, and children living on the street and to help them through the navigation process into housing stability and self-sufficiency.
• The Way Home – SEARCH is a leader and key partner in The Way Home, Houston’s community-wide collaborative action plan to end homelessness. In addition to the Coalition for the Homeless, the City, and the Houston and Harris County Housing Authorities, SEARCH collaborates with numerous organizations, including New Hope Housing, the Beacon, Healthcare for the Homeless, the Downtown Management District, Salvation Army, Star of Hope, the Housing Corporation, and many others.
• SEARCH works with housing providers to place clients into homes and then provides ongoing, intensive case management and wrap-around supportive services. Partners in this effort include the Houston and Harris County Housing Authorities and the City of Houston, as well as New Hope Housing, Temenos, and other housing providers.
• To help our clients improve their health, SEARCH, in partnership with Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston and New Hope Housing, has incorporated a unique integrated care model into our housing program that combines physical and behavioral health services, clinical case management, and care coordination services with registered nurses and community health workers working on-premises at some of our housing sites.
• Street Outreach efforts are carried out in close collaboration with several community partners, including Healthcare for the Homeless, the Houston Police Department - Homeless Outreach Team, Star of Hope, The Council on Recovery, the Houston Recovery Center, the Harris Center for Mental Health & IDD, and others. Staff from these organizations visit the encampments together in order to offer an array of different services and to help get the residents there to move more quickly into housing.
• SEARCH’s Council of Congregations represents diverse ethnic, social, and spiritual backgrounds and provides spiritual guidance, volunteers, financial support, in-kind resources, and opportunities for people in need.
• SEARCH’s dedicated and hardworking volunteers help us carry out our programs and operations.

Over the past three years:
• SEARCH served 9,172 clients across all programs.
• Our Outreach teams assisted 2,115 individuals living on the streets.
• We helped 1,349 individuals and families move into homes of their own.
• Our House of Tiny Treasures preschool served a total of 251 children and their families.