Outreach Principle: Meeting People Where They Are

“Meeting people where they are” is a principle that guides street outreach, not just in Racine, but all across the USA. In the literal sense, street outreach takes services to people where they are located on the streets. Most of the people we meet during street outreach do not initiate contact by coming into the office or calling us on the phone. We come across them on the streets during the course of outreach and start to get to know them. Street outreach takes services to where people are located, even if it is in the woods, a parking garage, behind a dumpster, or in their car in the corner of a parking lot. This week, for example, our street outreach team completed a housing assessment and referral in a laundromat after midnight. Sometimes people start coming to the office after we have contact with them on the streets, sometimes not. We continue meeting them where they are at night as long as they are on the streets and consent to us doing so.

Street outreach also meets people where they are in a figurative sense, whatever their current status is. People might be happy, sad, angry, depressed, intoxicated, or anxious. However we find them, street outreach starts from there. Some people may not accept any assistance, and that is also OK. People’s situations change over time, and however we find people, that’s how they are the moment. We start from there and try to serve them in the moment as well as looking at how we might be able to assist.