TUCSON (KVOA) — Shelters around Pima County are struggling to expand their capacity as the homeless population continues to grow.
The City of Tucson is doing multiple things to support people experiencing homelessness.
There are multiple things the city is doing to address homelessness. The city is in the middle of purchasing two hotels to help increase shelter capacity. They also just launched a dashboard online as a resource to the public to help monitor homelessness.
“Having to sleep on the sidewalk at Armory Penark isn’t nice,” said a man experiencing homelessness.
The homeless encampment protocol and reporting tool. It’s a resource for the community to report encampments.
“We have what we call harm assessment and what it does is it determines the level of health and safety in the surrounding area,” said Liz Morale, City of Tucson Housing and Community Development Director.
The City is using a three-tier system to determine what resources are needed.
Tier one consists of the people not living in the encampment, that’s when an environmental service will help clean up the mess.
Tier two is when people are living in the encampment, so the city would determine what resources are needed to help people experiencing homelessness.
Tier three encampment has more potential violence and harm to the homeless and others which would require TPD to respond. The dashboard isn’t the only thing being done to help those experiencing homelessness.
“It’s very difficult for them to find housing and have housing that’s not just shelter but wrap-around services. So that’s one of the hotels as were in the middle of purchasing, the other is a 67-unit hotel,” said Morales.
Cassidie Orin falls tells news 4 Tucson he would love to go to this shelter once it’s up and running.
“I’m interested in that. I hope they will offer different jobs and services. That’s what each family needs. I would be honored to be apart of that” said Orin Falls.
Every week, a task force meets to come up with strategies to help the homeless here. City of Tucson Mayor Romero started this task force.
For more information, visit arcgis.com.
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