Street Outreach

Hope For the Homeless

The Office of Homeless Solutions’ Street Outreach’s goal is to connect those who are experiencing homelessness to supportive services.

Street Outreach

The objective for Street Outreach is to provide quality services to the City’s most vulnerable while maintaining a safe and clean environment for the citizens of Dallas. The OHS Street Outreach team can be separated into three core teams or components: Street Outreach, the Homeless Action Response Team (H.A.R.T.), and R.E.A.L. Time Rehousing (RTR).

OHS’s Street Outreach team engages with unsheltered residents by connecting individuals with needed resources, such as: identification documents, working with Community Courts on expunging eligible tickets and offenses from their records, identifying medical needs, and getting individuals access to the Coordinated Access System (CAS). They are also responsible for scheduled cleanings and outreach in areas that may pose hazards to the residents, or the community at large based on 3-1-1 data.

H.A.R.T. is considered the first responders of Street Outreach and is led by the Office of Homeless Solutions. H.A.R.T. encompasses four teams comprised of a core team of the following: the Office of Integrated Public Safety’s Crisis Intervention Team, Dallas Animal Services, Dallas Marshals, and Code Compliance. This team is supplemented by Parks and Recreation, Dallas Fire and Rescue, and Public Works, as needed. The purpose of H.A.R.T. is to provide a quick response to immediate safety concerns around homeless encampments and hot spots identified via 3-1-1 data.

Street Outreach supports the RTR Initiative by partnering with Housing Forward, the lead agency for the local Continuum of Care, to co-lead the RTR’s Encampment Decommissioning arm, which identifies and sustainably closes encampments through the housing of our unsheltered neighbors.

Street Outreach also facilitates and oversees the City’s temporary inclement weather shelter (IWS) response in partnership with other area homelessness service providers. For more information on IWS activation please click here.

The Impact of Outreach

Do you want to learn more about how to help a homeless neighbor in need? Do you feel called to join our initiatives and make a meaningful difference in the community? Learn more about how you can get involved.