Provides connection to housing options for teens in crisis ages 12-17.

Prevention Services offered at Cocoon House

Organizations that make an effort to increase the availability and utilization of community services by specific target populations by providing direct services for targeted individuals in their homes or other convenient locations or by making special efforts to ensure that a particular group is aware of available services and encouraged to participate. Included are programs that do outreach regarding their own services as well as those which encourage a target population to use a wide variety of services.

Outreach Programs

Programs that provide extended shelter and supportive services primarily for homeless individuals and/or families with the goal of helping them live independently and transition into permanent housing. Some programs require that the individual/family be transitioning from a short-term emergency shelter. The length of stay varies considerably by program. It is generally longer than two weeks but typically 60 days or more and, in many cases, up to two years or more. The supportive services may be provided directly by the organization managing the housing or may be coordinated by them and provided by other public or private agencies. Transitional housing/shelter is generally provided in apartment style facilities with a higher degree of privacy than short-term homeless shelters; may be provided at no cost to the resident; and may be configured for specialized groups within the homeless population such as people with substance use disorders, a mental illness, AIDS/HIV, who have experienced domestic violence and/or veterans. In some cases, a "transition in place" option allows families to continue living in the same complex (if not the same unit) where their transitional housing unit is located when they are ready to move to permanent housing. In other cases, the permanent housing option is either public housing or private rental housing supported by a tenant-based voucher subsidy. Included are post-domestic violence shelter housing programs that make affordable rental housing (or other accommodations) available to women, generally those who are coming directly out of a domestic violence shelter or other crisis shelter, often in apartment complexes owned by the shelter; and programs that provide transitional housing and support services for other targeted groups such as military and veteran families and others who need a temporary supportive living environment to maintain stability and begin to thrive.

Transitional Housing/Shelter

Programs that provide transportation services for homeless people from the streets to a local shelter with available space, either from a established pick-up site or by appointment from the individual’s current location. Also included are programs that provide transportation between shelters or to and from medical clinics, detoxification facilities, public assistance offices and other local service providers.

Homeless Transportation Programs

Programs that provide shelter and a safe place to sleep as well as access to food, medical care and other types of assistance for children and/or youth who have run away from or been pushed out of their homes, or who are acting out and at risk for abuse pending return to their own families or a suitable alternative placement. The most common causes for youth becoming homeless, in addition to being kicked out of their homes or running away, are being abandoned or neglected, experiencing financial hardship, aging out of foster care, conflicts related to their sexual orientation, having a substance use disorder or experiencing the death of a family member or guardian. Such facilities usually provide in-house individual, group and family counseling and the full range of other secondary services related to runaways and other homeless youth including referral to appropriate resources. Homeless youth are different than homeless adults because they often have not learned the essential life skills needed to live on their own such as how to drive or ride a bus, get a job or pay bills. Homeless youth are also more likely than other youth their age to experience mental illness, suffer poor health, drop out of school, and become involved with or victims of criminal activity, including being exploited, abused or even killed.

Youth Shelters

Provides volunteer-based free transportation to detox and treatment centers in Tri-Cities and surrounding areas. Provides food and water for homeless individuals. Offers peer-to-peer support and assists in removing barriers to recovery.

Transportation 4 Hope offered by Clean Sweep Tri-Cities

Provides volunteer-based free transportation to detox and treatment services in Tri-Cities and surrounding areas. Also provides food and water for homeless individuals.

Programs that provide transportation for medical appointments, trips from and between hospitals, to nursing homes or other special-care centers or for other non-emergency medical needs for individuals who, because of financial problems or their physical condition, are unable to use other means of local transportation. NEMT service providers are able to transport riders who require a wheelchair lift equipped vehicle with appropriate protective restraints or a van that is designed for gurney/stretcher transportation, or has other types of features to meet their safety needs.

Non-Emergency Medical Transportation

Programs that provide food that can be eaten cold for people who are homeless or for others who have no access to food preparation facilities.

No Cook Food

Provides rides for those heading to a warming center or warming shelter during times of extreme cold weather.

Severe Weather Transportation offered by C-Tran

Organizations that provide fixed-route mass transit services that utilize buses to transport people within the limits of a city, a metropolitan area, a county or a multicounty region or to move people from outlying areas into a city or metropolitan area. With traditional fixed-route services, buses run along an established path at preset times picking up passengers at designated bus stops. Variations include express fixed-route services with fewer stops; deviated-fixed route services which allow vehicles to deviate from the fixed route to pick up passengers at other specific locations, e.g., places of employment or child care centers, while keeping to a timetable for scheduled stops; point-deviation services which allow vehicles to stop at scheduled stops per a timetable but pick up passengers with advanced reservations between scheduled stops; and arrangements in which vehicles have no fixed stops but allow riders to hail a vehicle which travels along a fixed route and request a drop-off anywhere along the route.