On the verge of homelessness, Terralinda faced an impossible situation: return to her abusive partner, or end up on the streets.
“I went back to the same relationship, like, nine times because of the lack of housing and places to go,” she said. “I would run away from it and end up homeless….I would just go back because it was better than not knowing where I was going to be.”
She spent years trying to get out, living without shelter until moving back in with her partner, and starting the cycle over again. But she kept running into dead ends. When she tried getting into domestic violence shelters, there wasn’t enough room, she said.
“There are too many women and not enough resources,” she said. “A lot of people are falling through the cracks.”
Things began to change when she connected with the Cascadia Health street outreach team. Terralinda had a friend who was able to get into housing with the help of the team, and her friend said they might be able to help Terralinda, too.
Terralinda was skeptical because she hadn’t been able to get help before, but she said the help she’s gotten has been “phenomenal.” Now, she’s in an apartment where she feels safe, and she receives ongoing mental health support and case management.
“It’s an outstanding program,” she said. “If anybody’s going to help you, it’s them.”
Outreach often first touchpoint to services
For many people experiencing homelessness, street outreach workers are their first touchpoint to services. Street outreach teams go out into the community and meet people experiencing homelessness where they are, whether in camps, vehicles or street corners.
Outreach is often a short-term, survival-focused intervention — an opportunity to provide someone with needed supplies and referrals to resources.
But with repeated contacts, outreach leads to long-term relationships. Outreach workers build trust over time, and help people connect to long-term services, whether that be healthcare, shelter or housing.
Cascadia Health is one of more than a dozen providers funded by Multnomah County to conduct street outreach.
Each outreach team brings its own set of services, and many have a specialized focus. Cascadia Health’s team, for example, focuses on clients with behavioral health challenges, and all of its outreach workers are certified mental health professionals. Other teams bring a culturally specific focus, or they prioritize housing navigation or intensive service navigation for people living in campsites posted for removal.
All teams funded by the Joint Office share a focus on survival support for people living unsheltered. But often, outreach teams also focus on connecting clients to long-term services. Through repeated conversations and meetings with their clients, outreach workers establish trust — and help open pathways to stability, like temporary shelter and housing.
Outreach worker helps Terralinda access housing
Kirsten McGarvey, a community counselor and outreach worker with Cascadia, first contacted Terralinda. Terralinda said she immediately felt a connection. “I was fortunate enough to meet her, and I told her what had happened with my life,” Terralinda said. “She did an evaluation, and was awesome, and helped me.”
McGarvey helped Terralinda leave the streets for an apartment within just a couple months, which McGarvey credits to Terralinda’s dedication.
“She was very active in the whole housing search. She was like, ‘When can we meet? I'll be available,’” McGarvey said. “She never no-showed. She never canceled. She was always there, very involved.”
And Terralinda had fewer barriers to housing compared to some other people experiencing homelessness, which also helped things move quickly. Outreach workers routinely help clients overcome those barriers — past debts, lost identity documents, healthcare needs, criminal records, etc. — which adds time to someone’s housing search. But they also move nimbly to help clients whose needs are less acute.
“Luckily she had her ID already. She had her Social Security card already,” McGarvey said of Terralinda.
McGarvey connected Terralinda with rapid rehousing rent assistance, which aims to quickly move people from homelessness to housing with flexible funding to help subsidize market rents while also providing other services to help clients remain housed. The rent assistance typically lasts for 12 months, and it is paired with ongoing case management.
McGarvey worked with Terralinda to find an affordable apartment that fit her needs.
“Once she was housed, there was a while of just managing resources, checking in with Social Security, helping her with car stuff, and then also meeting at least twice a month for therapy,” McGarvey said.
However, things took a turn for the worse when Terralinda’s former partner found out where she was living, which put Terralinda’s safety at risk. Because McGarvey was still working with Terralinda, she helped her move to a different, safer apartment.
Terralinda says she feels totally safe in her new “dream apartment.” And as a bonus, it has a lofted second floor, which Terralinda always wanted.
Mental health support helps people navigating transition from homelessness to housing
Terralinda continues to work with Cascadia’s outreach team, receiving both case management and mental health support.
McGarvey said leaving homelessness for housing can be a tough transition, which is why mental health support is so valuable for clients.
“A lot of their protective factors come from unhelpful or unhealthy coping skills, and a lot of those are just literally taken away from them,” she said of people re-entering housing. “I think there's also a sense of grief that they weren't expecting to have, because you are losing a community, and a lot of the coping skills that protected you and saved you aren't going to work when you're actually housed.”
And with Terralinda’s life experience, McGarvey said mental health services are particularly important. “She has a lot of trauma in her background,” McGarvey said.
Terralinda said the mental health support has helped her a lot as she begins a new chapter. “Talking to somebody else about things makes it a bit easier to work it out,” she said. “With the treatment I’ve gotten, I feel human. You don’t get treated like that very often, coming from where I was at.”
Now, Terralinda is settling into her new apartment, along with her two dogs, Foxy and Little Boy. She said she’s not sure what the future holds, but she knows she doesn’t have to face it alone.
“With all the things that I'm learning, and the tools for my own health, as well as my own home, everything's gonna be all right,” she said. “To be able to get up in the morning and be safe, and to be able to go and talk to somebody that I trust, is awesome.”
Video
