Beyond Arrests: 8 Police Responses to Homelessness Being Used Now

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Homelessness became a police problem gradually, then all at once. Municipal laws restricting where unhoused individuals can sleep, sit, or store belongings have grown in correlation with rising homelessness across the U.S. When those ordinances get passed, guess who enforces them? When community members call about encampments, who responds? Law enforcement.

Most officers didn’t join the job to shuffle homeless individuals from one street corner to another, but that’s often the only tool agencies are given to work with: enforce the ordinances, move people along, repeat. It strains criminal justice systems, damages police legitimacy, and doesn’t solve anything.

The good news? A lot of agencies are doing far more than that, even if it doesn’t make headlines.

A 2024 study by Natalie Kroovand Hipple, Kayla Allison, Kaitlyn Campbell, and Mitchell A. Farrell analyzed over 2.4 million social media posts from 1,749 police departments, narrowing to 4,000 posts describing actual homeless responses, and interviewed six agencies with specialized homeless response units. They identified eight distinct categories of police responses that included 11 specific activities. Meaning there’s a lot more happening than just arrests and citations.

Here’s why that matters. Right now there’s no national guidance for police on homeless response. No framework for what works. No playbook. Every agency is figuring it out locally, often under intense scrutiny from both sides of the political spectrum. This research is the first systematic look at what police are actually doing in the field. Understanding the range of responses agencies are using can help your department identify strategies that fit your community’s context and resources. Because what works in San Diego won’t necessarily work in Duluth. Police are being forced to innovate, often with no blueprint and limited support.

How Police Are Responding to Homelessness: 8 Strategies

The researchers divided police activity into two broad categories: proactive responses (not prompted by a call for service) and reactive responses (triggered by community complaints or 911 calls).

Relationship-Building and Prevention

These are the proactive, discretionary approaches focused on connecting people to services before situations escalate.

Outreach and Liaison was by far the most common police response to homelessness found in the study. This is a systematic attempt to connect people experiencing homelessness to services or support. It can be mobile, where officers go out to encampments, or stationary, where unhoused individuals come to a location to receive services. The research identified six types:

• Human needs outreach means police provide basic items like socks, food, water, blankets. Hillsboro PD in Oregon gave out blankets to homeless individuals during winter. Of the specialized units interviewed, most engaged in this kind of outreach regularly.
• Physical, mental, and behavioral health outreach involves police working with providers to offer street medical care, distribute Narcan, or conduct screenings to identify health needs. San Diego PD worked with a Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, the Alpha Project, and a nurse practitioner to visit homeless areas and provide medical assistance.
• Assistance with access or warm handoffs means police help people navigate benefits, services, and housing connections. A “warm handoff” is when an officer drives someone directly to a treatment facility or shelter rather than just handing them a phone number. Las Vegas PD’s homeless outreach team partnered with multiple agencies to offer everything from job placement to haircuts in a single event.
• Transportation is straightforward: using police vehicles to transport people to medical appointments, shelters, required court hearings. The units interviewed said it was common. Kansas City PD helped load a homeless woman’s belongings and drove her to Rainbow Services Inc.
• Relationship building and coaching is the foundation of everything else. The specialized units described learning names and building trust as the essential first step. By knowing individuals, officers can better understand community needs and locate people when services become available. Chicago PD posted about a commander who sat down with a homeless teenager, bought him food, and talked through what resources he needed.
• Companion animal needs showed up less frequently but was notable. Police provided supplies and veterinary care for pets belonging to people experiencing homelessness. San Diego PD distributed dog care bags with food, water, and treats. Yes, this is real. Many people experiencing homelessness won’t go to shelters that don’t allow pets, choosing to stay on the street with their dog rather than abandon it.

Prevention and Safeguarding involves police taking action in anticipation of a known upcoming event. During weather emergencies, police notify unhoused individuals about dangerous weather conditions and direct them to resources like temporary warming centers. Denver PD provided transportation during a blizzard and gave the public a number to call if they saw someone in need. For large events like festivals or sporting events, officers inform people experiencing homelessness about upcoming gatherings so they can relocate temporarily if they choose. This didn’t show up much on social media, but in interviews, officers noted that most unhoused individuals don’t want to get caught up in the chaos of a big event and will move voluntarily if given notice.

Crisis Response and Boundary-Setting

These are the reactive responses, what happens when someone calls 911 or a situation escalates.

De-escalation support involves using de-escalation techniques to safely manage a person experiencing homelessness who is in crisis.

Hayward PD successfully de-escalated a situation with a man brandishing a knife at a park ranger, talked him out of his tent, and got him to a hospital for evaluation.

Parenting didn’t show up much on social media but came up frequently in interviews. It’s when police become aware of illegal activity in an encampment and warn residents of potential consequences. It’s often spurred by complaints from other unhoused individuals. The term “parenting” implies a kind of boundary-setting that’s somewhere between social work and law enforcement.

Law enforcement action is routine police work: responding to calls for service involving someone experiencing homelessness. This also includes encampment cleanups and closures. LAPD posted about arresting a homeless individual for murder. NYPD posted about cleaning up an encampment in High Bridge Park. This is the most visible and most controversial response. If someone commits a violent crime, they get arrested. If city ordinances require encampment cleanup, police carry it out. Whether those ordinances should exist is a policy question, not a policing question.

Partner inquiry rarely appeared on social media but was mentioned in interviews. This is when a partner agency reaches out to police for help regarding specific homeless individuals, things like asking officers to identify someone from a photo. It’s mundane but shows how embedded police are in the broader network of agencies dealing with homelessness.

When Officers Improvise Outside Policy

These responses fall outside official channels, sometimes filling gaps, sometimes raising questions about sustainability.

Laissez-Faire is a hands-off approach. An example: an unhoused person living in a wooded area off the beaten path, refusing services but not generating complaints. Police check in periodically to offer help and maintain a relationship, but otherwise don’t interfere. This barely showed up in social media posts, but in interviews, officers mentioned it, though some felt it was enabling rather than helping. Duluth PD posted about conducting a welfare check on an encampment.

Altruism is not an official police response. It’s when individual officers use their own money and personal resources to help someone experiencing homelessness. Usually it’s to meet basic human needs.

Boynton Beach PD shared a story about two officers who paid for a two-night hotel stay for a 78-year-old homeless woman.

During site visits, officers described storing furniture for unhoused individuals who were finally moving into supportive housing but faced delays. This happens frequently according to the interviews, though it’s underrepresented in social media posts. It’s not sustainable or scalable, but it reveals the gap between what officers encounter and what official responses can address.

One more thing the researchers noted during site visits: a big part of the specialized units’ job was educating community members about what police can and cannot do in response to homelessness, and explaining the unintended consequences of well-meaning actions like providing furniture or food directly to encampments without coordination with service providers.

Police Homeless Partnerships: What Actually Works

Yes, partnerships matter. You’ve heard this before. The academy doesn’t cover coalition-building or navigating HUD bureaucracy, but those are the skills that make homeless outreach actually work. The specialized units interviewed emphasized that partnerships were essential but difficult to create and maintain. Different agencies have different goals, different timelines, different funding sources. The nonprofit running the shelter operates on grant cycles. The mental health provider is overwhelmed and understaffed. The city’s housing authority has a two-year waitlist.

Here’s what actually helps:

Start with who’s already there. Identify which agencies are already doing good work with your homeless population. Don’t try to build from scratch.

Show up consistently. Attend existing coalition meetings. Learn their constraints such as what they can and cannot do, and why. You’re not trying to fix their system; you’re trying to figure out where your responses can complement theirs.

Find a small win first. Don’t launch with a full-scale homeless outreach unit. Coordinate on one specific issue. Maybe it’s getting people IDs, maybe it’s a monthly resource fair. Build trust through success before tackling the bigger stuff.

Clarify what you’re asking for. “We need you to partner with us” is vague. “Can your crisis team ride along twice a week to provide mental health assessments during welfare checks” is specific. The more concrete the ask, the easier it is to get a yes or understand why it’s a no.

How to Start a Homeless Outreach Team: The Wichita Model

Wichita, Kansas: Starting with One Officer

In 2013, Officer Nate Schwiethale founded Wichita PD’s Homeless Outreach Team with a simple realization: he was arresting the same people for drinking and panhandling, sending them to jail, and watching them return to the streets. The cycle wasn’t working. He started the H.O.T. program by reallocating existing resources—no new funding, just two officers assigned to homeless outreach instead of traditional patrol.

The approach was straightforward: don’t make arrests. Build trust with the homeless community instead. Officers learned names, made repeated contacts (sometimes 15-20 before someone accepted services), and partnered with the local Continuum of Care to connect people to housing. They focused on the chronically homeless—the individuals cycling through emergency services who were costing the city an estimated $54,000 per person annually in police time, court fees, emergency services, and medical costs.

The results: chronic homelessness dropped 86% in six years. The team now has four officers, connects over 100 people annually to housing, and has been recognized by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and Department of Justice as a best practice model.

What made it replicable:

• Started with existing resources. No grant required. Just reassigned two officers to focus on homeless outreach instead of arrests.
• Partnered with one key organization. Joined the Continuum of Care and used their existing Housing First program and HMIS database rather than building something from scratch.
• Enforcement-last mentality. Officers let minor violations (jaywalking, low-level ordinance violations) slide if people were willing to work with them to get into shelter. The goal was addressing why there’s homelessness, not stacking more fines.
• Built trust through repetition. The same officers doing outreach were NOT the ones making arrests on other calls. That separation was crucial.

Navigating the political pressure: Wichita faced the same tensions every department does—city council wanting visible action, business owners complaining about downtown encampments, constituents demanding results. Schwiethale’s pitch was economic: housing people costs less than the revolving door of jail, ER visits, and repeat calls for service. When an assault happened at an encampment or complaints spiked, the H.O.T. team didn’t stop outreach—they used enforcement selectively while maintaining relationships. The data showing an 86% reduction in chronic homelessness gave leadership cover to keep supporting the approach even when political pressure mounted. You can’t arrest your way out of homelessness, but you also can’t ignore community safety. Wichita’s model showed you could do both by using the full menu of responses rather than defaulting to enforcement alone.

What you can replicate with limited resources:

• Designate one or two officers for homeless outreach (reallocation, not new hires)
• Join your local Continuum of Care—they already have Housing First programs, HMIS data systems, and service provider networks
• Establish an enforcement-last policy: let minor violations slide if someone’s willing to accept services
• Track the data: chronic homeless individuals served, housing placements, reduction in repeat calls for service
• Use the cost savings argument: $54,000/year per chronic homeless person in system costs vs. permanent supportive housing
• If you want to learn more about the successes and challenges of homeless outreach teams, check out my post on the Phildelphia SEPTA transit police experiment.

Why Police-Homeless Outreach Teams Don’t Always Work

Philadelphia tested a police–outreach co-responder model for homelessness. Learn what worked, what didn’t, and why training made all the difference.

More than Just Heroes: Two Cities Offer a Pathway to Reducing Homelessness in America – CSG Justice Center

Solutions for complex justice challenges

What This Research Doesn’t Tell Us (Yet)

Here’s what’s missing: evaluation data. This study documents what police are doing, but it doesn’t tell us what works. Which approaches reduce repeat calls for service? Which ones successfully connect people to long-term housing? The researchers suggest that future studies could use social network analysis to identify the nature and extent of relationships involved in police responses and potentially predict success. Right now, we’re still in the documentation phase.

The study also has a major limitation the researchers are explicit about: social media posts are curated by police departments to highlight positive responses. Departments rarely post about responses that don’t reflect well on them—arrests for trespassing, controversial encampment sweeps, interactions that escalate. The research likely underrepresents enforcement-heavy approaches. So when you see an NYPD tweet about “connecting residents with services,” you’re not seeing the data on how many people were arrested that month for sleeping in the park.

What You Can Do Monday

If you’re a line officer: Start learning names. The next time you respond to a call about someone experiencing homelessness, ask their name, use it, and remember it for next time. That’s relationship building. It costs nothing and it’s the foundation every specialized unit mentioned.

If you’re a supervisor: Inventory what your officers are already doing. Are they giving rides to shelters? Connecting people with mental health crisis teams? Storing someone’s belongings while they go to detox? That’s happening informally. The question is whether you’ll formalize it, track it, and build on it.

If you’re command staff: Compare your current approach to this typology. Are you doing only law enforcement action, or are you using the full menu? If your community is expecting results and you’re only using one or two response types, you’re limiting your options. Identify which responses align with your community’s needs and your available resources, then build incrementally.

Final Thoughts

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to police responses to homelessness. What works depends on local context, available partners, and the nature of the homeless population in your community. Chronic homelessness, individuals with disabilities who’ve been continuously homeless for a year or more, requires different responses than families experiencing temporary displacement. Police are often the first point of contact for people experiencing homelessness, but law enforcement shouldn’t be solely responsible for solutions when the drivers are housing costs, mental health system gaps, and substance use treatment availability.

The research shows that police nationwide are innovating with no blueprint and limited support. Understanding the range of responses being used can help departments identify strategies that align with their community’s needs and resources.

People are living and dying on your streets. This research won’t solve homelessness. But it might help you figure out which approaches are worth your limited time and political capital and give you the language to explain why enforcement alone isn’t enough, even when the pressure to “do something visible” is intense.

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Carlee Ruiz

Carlee Ruiz is the founder of PoliceResearchHub, a platform that turns academic research into practical insights for law enforcement. She brings seven years of experience as a crime analyst and justice researcher, with a focus on evidence based policing, gun violence prevention, and public safety strategy. Carlee currently works as a researcher at National Policing Institute, where she supports evaluations of law enforcement programs and criminal justice initiatives across the country. Through PoliceResearchHub, she aims to make research easier to understand and more useful for the people doing the work on the ground.