Austin set a lofty goal of effectively ending youth homelessness in the city by the end of 2020, and to do so city leaders are looking to what worked to end veteran homelessness four years ago.
“Austin knows what works,” said Darilynn Cardona-Beiler, director of adult behavioral health system with Integral Care, the mental health group that was instrumental in ending veterans homelessness. “We need to scale what we have.”
What works, she said, is the housing-first approach that her group and others focus on to get people off the street quickly, and then focus on connecting them to other services to treat the underlying reasons a person might be experiencing homelessness, such as mental illness or drug addiction.