Homeless Services and Support in Atlanta
If you are in need of housing assistance and are experiencing homelessness please call 311 from any landline or cell phone in the city of Atlanta. There, you will be connected to the starting point to obtain housing services.
Intown Cares is one of many organizations in Atlanta that are working together to prevent, reverse, and end homelessness in our city and neighborhoods.
Ending homelessness in Atlanta means creating a system where individuals who present as homeless are able to be served and housed immediately. Our goal is to make homelessness rare and brief and create long term, effective housing solutions for individuals who have experienced homelessness in the past.
Organizations in Atlanta are working together to end homelessness using the best practice strategy called Housing First. Housing First is a low-barrier strategy where individuals who ask for help to get housing are supported, regardless of their history, criminal background, mental heath status, drug or alcohol status, or any other "barrier to housing".
Once a person presents as homeless to an organization in Atlanta, their immediate needs are met by an outreach team, and they are placed on the city-wide housing placement queue. Outreach teams, assessors, navigators, and housing providers work together to place each person experiencing homelessness in Atlanta in to a permanent housing solution as quickly as possible.
Intown is a partner in the Atlanta Continuum of Care, which is coordinated by Partners for Home. Learn more about PFH's strategic plan for ending homelessness in Atlanta here.
Many people ask why homeless encampments and panhandlers still exist when the system is in place to house people. Each individual experiencing homelessness in Atlanta has full autonomy to make their own decisions about whether they are ready to access services, move inside, or participate in our support system. On average, it takes an Intown outreach worker 9 interactions with a person before that person is interested in beginning to access services.
People who have been homeless for many years often do not trust the system and have been denied services in the past due to their barriers to housing. Many people have not tried to access services since Atlanta began using the collaborative housing first model in 2015.
Intown and our partner agencies are working hard to ensure that each person who wants to move inside has access to do so and continues to work to build relationships with our neighbors who are not yet ready to move inside.