Real Change Movement
Below are some programs the City of Pasadena supports, to help homeless issues.
Read below and spread the word about these resources.
Pasadena funds Friends in Deed’s Homeless Prevention Program. This program is designed to help prevent households from becoming homeless by covering one time limited costs like back rent, which left unpaid could result in homelessness.
Pasadena funds Door of Hope’s Rapid Rehousing Program. This program focuses on quickly housing newly homeless households because the longer a household is homeless the harder it is for them to get out homelessness.
Project HOUSED/FUSE Programs
Pasadena provides rent subsidies for Housing Works’ housing first programs. These programs target the most chronically homeless persons and get them into permanent housing with supportive services. We target this population because they are the most vulnerable, most likely to die on the street if not housed, and the persons who are most costly to society since they are often very frequent users of some of society’s most expensive support systems and services (e.g., emergency rooms, hospital beds, jails, courts, police, fire, paramedic, prosecutors, public defenders, etc.). Research has shown it is far less expensive to provide housing and services than to let the chronically homeless remain on the streets. The clients are provided permanent housing (as opposed to a shelter bed) thereby ending their homelessness.
Pasadena has partnered with nonprofit developers and Union Station Homeless Services to build and operate permanent supportive housing developments for formerly homeless individuals and families. The housing provided is permanent so those housed are no longer homeless.
Transitional Housing
Pasadena works with a few nonprofit organizations that operate a limited number of transitional housing sites for homeless individuals and families. Residents can stay for up to two years while they are helped to transition out of homelessness.
Emergency Shelters
There are dozens of emergency shelter beds for individual men and women, and families in Pasadena. When these beds are filled up homeless persons from Pasadena are given access to available shelter beds in other cities. A bad weather shelter opens in Pasadena on rainy winter nights to prevent hypothermia.
Basic Services for the Homeless
Some nonprofit organizations and faith-based organizations provide meals, clothes, showers, laundry and other basic services for homeless persons on a daily basis for free. Friends in Deed operates the Women’s Room as a safe place for homeless women to spend the day and enjoy companionship while receiving basic services.
Mental Health Services and Substance Abuse Recovery Programs
Homeless persons in Pasadena have access to these programs through local homeless service providers at no cost although the services are not always located in Pasadena.
Homeless Outreach Workers
The best way to get chronically homeless persons, sometimes referred to those who are “service resistant,” is to build a trusting relationship with them. They typically will not come to existing services themselves so homeless outreach workers go out to contact them repeatedly until trust can be established, then the outreach workers encourage them to participate in existing homeless services and housing. It is important to note that no one can be forced to participate in services even when free services that could be of benefit to them are readily available.
HOPE Teams
The Pasadena Police Department and the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health collaborate to staff HOPE Teams which consist of one specially trained police officer and one county mental health worker. The HOPE Teams try to intervene where appropriate with mentally ill homeless persons.
This public education campaign on homelessness was developed by the City of Pasadena, Flintridge Center and Art Center College of Design. It seeks to provide information about homeless programs and resources and to educate the public on how to provide real help to the homeless. Included in the campaign are special orange meters installed throughout Pasadena that serve as public donation stations. The United Way of Greater Los Angeles matches the money collected by the meters which goes towards services that end homelessness in Pasadena.
Please visit www.RealChangeMovement.org for more information.
