Fort Worth expands High Impact homeless program, triples outreach staffing
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Summary
Homeless Strategies reported pilot outcomes — high housing acceptance and retention — and plans to expand capacity with more vouchers and staff; outreach staffing tripled to six and the program seeks treatment integration to reduce law enforcement contacts.
Tara Perez of Homeless Strategies told the Public Safety Committee on Feb. 3 that the city’s High Impact pilot yielded high housing acceptance and retention and that the city is expanding both housing vouchers and outreach staffing.
Perez said the 17-month pilot met its goal of serving 80 clients: 86% accepted housing offers and 94% of those housed remained housed after one year. The city plans to add 30 vouchers and expand the program’s capacity toward roughly 110 clients.
Perez described the typical High Impact client as older and long-term unsheltered (median age about 54; roughly seven and a half years unsheltered). She said 95% of clients had severe mental illness and 73% had substance use disorder; about 10% had opioid disorder.
The city has tripled street outreach staff from two to six workers and organized three two-person teams that prioritize areas with high unsheltered populations (Northside/Stockyards, Southside and East Lancaster). Perez said outreach met with more than 613 unsheltered people in the first quarter and emphasized that outreach staff—rather than law enforcement—often secure higher acceptance rates for services.
Perez said psychiatric service uptake rose over time (to 63% during the pilot from about 15–20% earlier), citing creative engagement techniques such as staff accompanying clients to laundromats to build rapport. The program aims to increase treatment engagement and integrate a chemical dependency counselor (funded via the opioid settlement request) to open 10 additional vouchers and boost treatment acceptance.
Committee members asked how the city manages clients who decline services after being housed; Perez said progress is gradual and that increasing treatment uptake has been a focus. Staff also agreed to provide future presentations with trend data (e.g., uptake over time) to show program impacts.
