Back in 2020, Dignity Health joined forces with and provided a $1,059,712 grant to establish a homeless persons’ resource program that reaches four regions in California: Fresno/Merced Central Valley, San Joaquin, San Bernardino, and San Luis Obispo counties.
The Salvation Army San Bernardino Corps used the funding to establish Street Outreach Teams, which proactively visit unhoused individuals in specially equipped vans to provide support and work on stable, long-term housing solutions.
“We do our best to contact unhoused people where they are in their time of need—be that under freeway underpasses or in riverbed encampments—and we spend time getting to know them and their needs. You can’t treat each person as if they are the same; everyone has individual needs, barriers, and goals,” says Naomi Kuhlman, The Salvation Army San Bernardino Corps’ Director of Programs…