Subway Outreach Services

The Vendor is required to provide to developing a comprehensive continuum of services tailored to the unique needs of individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness and offers resources and services designed to help individuals secure stable, long-term housing.
- Our primary focus is helping individuals transition from the streets and subways into shelter and stability - one person at a time -and supporting them in securing housing and maintaining long-term stability.
- Outreach and engagement are the first steps involved in connecting with street homeless people, bringing them off the streets, and linking them with other portions of the service system. Most individuals experiencing chronic homelessness are unlikely to connect with even the best housing programs unless these first contacts are effective".
- Homeless services teams currently provide street outreach, case management and housing placement services to individuals experiencing homelessness in public spaces, including the street and subway, many of whom face complex challenges including serious mental illness and/or substance use disorders.
- Outreach teams are a referral source into Safe Havens and Stabilization Beds, low-barrier, service-rich placements designed to engage individuals who are not yet ready for traditional shelter, offering a pathway toward permanent housing.
- Homeless services teams would be flexible in working with the variety of behaviors and situations an individual experiencing homelessness may present. Some of these may include but are not limited to: hoarding; lack of personal hygiene; self-isolation; serious mental illness; substance use disorders, including alcohol and opioid dependence, and injection drug use; medical conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cellulitis, poor dentition, infestation with lice or other parasites, or ailments of the feet that need to be addressed; history of violence and/or aggressive behavior; justice system involvement
- Responsible for ensuring that all unhoused individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness within their catchment area have access to case management services.
- Have at least one, but no more than three field outreach team on shift 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The majority of field outreach teams will work on the overnight shift.
- Field outreach teams workers would be responsible for canvassing areas within the contractor’s catchment area, identifying individuals within such areas that appear to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness, gathering demographic information about such individuals, offering such individuals services, and reporting on such individuals to case managers.