A King County caseworker-on-wheels brings housing to homeless people via the streets
“Cities and even charities have devoted few, if any, resources to the car-dwelling population because of this invisibility. The residents are usually seen as more able to help themselves and they usually haven’t been homeless as long.
But in recent years, it’s become clearer to budget makers that parking lots like these are teeming with people who could become chronically homeless without intervention. If their poverty can be curbed quickly, the government can save lots of money in 911 responses, hospital visits and camp cleanups in years to come.
That’s where Tina Lewis and the program she works for, Salvation Army’s Street Level, come in. These programs are proliferating and spreading into new parts of King County this year and being copied around the country.
It’s a fairly simple approach: A Salvation Army outreach worker like Lewis knocks on a car window, talks to the person, and helps with anything from getting a new ID to fixing vehicles to getting a phone.
Lewis comes back each week to check on them, eventually helping secure housing and a job, or welfare benefits.”