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DeKalb delegation returns from Texas study tour with 'Housing First' and continuum‑of‑care lessons
Summary
Commissioner Michelle Long Spears and delegation members reported lessons from visits to San Antonio and Houston, emphasizing private continuum‑of‑care models, low‑barrier navigation centers, diversion programs and permanent supportive housing as tools to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring.
Commissioner Michelle Long Spears (presiding officer, District 2, DeKalb County) led a multiagency delegation that visited San Antonio, Houston and other Texas jurisdictions to study large scale approaches to homelessness. "Housing first is an approach...prioritizes providing people experiencing homelessness with permanent, stable housing immediately without requiring them to first meet conditions such as sobriety or employment," Spears read to the commission as a framing principle.
Delegates highlighted San Antonio’s COC structure and Haven for Hope’s campus model—a 22‑acre, campus‑style facility combining emergency and transformational services—and Houston’s Way Home coalition, which operates a regionally coordinated continuum of care with more than 100 partners sharing an HMIS (homeless management information system) to coordinate services and target the highest‑need cases first. Delegates said those jurisdictions deploy a mix of philanthropic, federal and local funds to underwrite new permanent supportive housing and diversion programs.
Presenters described programs that include low‑barrier navigation centers that keep people off the street while they receive case management and a jail‑diversion model that partners law enforcement with prosecutors and clinicians to route individuals into treatment instead of arrest. Speakers cited operational returns on investment—examples presented included substantial reductions in criminal justice costs and emergency health spending when diversion and supportive housing were used.
Speakers returned with a recommendation to explore a more regional continuum of care in the Atlanta‑area and to strengthen county‑city partnerships and public‑private relationships for pooled funding and governance. The commission discussed applying those lessons locally and noted DeKalb County has initiated an unhoused planning process that will include stakeholder engagement and consultant briefings.
