Communities across the country are grappling with an increase in unsheltered homelessness (see the 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), Part 1). Oftentimes, that means an increase in encampments. Show The Way provides tools for:

Tracking active and inactive encampments

Maintaining lists of clients who are staying at each camp

Photo uploads of the camp site

Geographic tagging of each encampment location

These tools can help Outreach teams tackle remediation in a person-centered way, allowing for advanced notice of the camp being closed and tracking which camp clients have yet to be engaged in services.

As detailed in this article from Bloomerg CityLab, “Trust is a factor in how cities are learning to manage encampments. When cities conduct sweeps to clear out tent cities without an alternative — be it shelter beds, housing vouchers or permanent housing — that breaks the trust that outreach workers have built up with unhoused people.” Drawing from the first of its kind report about Encampments from Abt Associates, there are both realized and unrealized costs for managing encampments, and cooperation is needed across a variety of service sectors and public service departments.

Show The Way can bring those efforts together. Specific roles for first responders–including a platform for submitting Requests for Help tickets to a centralized Command Center manned by Service Providers–allow for a level of engagement not often currently available within systems. Planning and coordination can be aided with the mapping tools in the Regional Command Center. Sharing the right information, with the right people, at the right time is key in these situations. Show The Way can be the cross-sector tool to bring it all together.