This measure reflects the work performed by the City of Austin Homeless Outreach Street Team (HOST).  This multi-disciplinary team is made up of staff from Austin – Travis County Emergency Medical Services Department (ATCEMS), the Austin Police Department (APD), Downtown Austin Community Court (DACC), and the Local Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disability Authority, Integral Care.  The team is comprised of community health paramedics, police officers, mental health professionals, outreach workers and peer support specialists. The team proactively engages with persons experiencing homelessness out in the community and works to navigate them to services addressing critical needs contributing to their homelessness. These needs include medical care, mental health care, case management and access to resources that can provide critical information and tools to obtain permanent housing.

HOST continues to increase the number of encounters with individuals experiencing homelessness with a goal of connecting them to available services and diverting them from hospital emergency rooms, jail incarceration, or psychiatric hospitalization services into a more appropriate level of services. It is projected that at some point in the future, the number of HOST contacts will plateau and decline over time as local efforts are increased to reduce unsheltered homelessness.

The grey line in the chart shown left is the goal for HOST unduplicated encounters. The blue line reflects actual unduplicated encounters performed in Austin. HOST has served an increased number of clients since 2017, as the total number of individuals experiencing homeless also continues to grow. This population growth brings associated increases in costs for the healthcare system and criminal justice system. This growth in associated increased costs has been somewhat mitigated by the City of Austin’s investment in the HOST program. 

The projected target population is expected to grow annually as demonstrated by data collected over the past 3 years.  Diversions from emergency rooms, jail, and the psychiatric hospitals also would continue to increase in proportion to encounters thus increasing the total cost avoidance associated with these interventions.

Note: to see the underlying data for this chart, please select the "View Source Data" link to the left.

The estimated cost for a hospital emergency room visit ranges from $500 - $3000.  The estimated cost of pre-trial jail incarceration per day is $60. The estimated costs of psychiatric hospitalization ranges from $736 to $1036 per day. From 2017 through Sept 2021, 1,362 total diversions were performed.  As of Sept 30, 2021, the City of Austin’s investments in in the HOST Program has reduced costs related to 823 diversions from emergency rooms for a potential savings in the range of $411,500 to $2,469,000, 322 jail diversions for a savings of $19,320 and 217 psychiatric hospital diversions with an estimated cost savings in the range of $157,542 to $224,812.

1) Definition:  Number of unique persons served by the Homeless Outreach Street Team. For Fiscal Year 2022, HOST made 1417 unduplicated encounters. Within this population, there were 76 emergency room diversions, 63 jail diversions, and 29 psychiatric hospital single day diversions. 

2) Calculation method: The number of diversions are a subset of the total number of interventions. The number of unduplicated encounters are a subset of the total number of encounters.

3) Data Collection Process: HOST captures the total number of encounters with persons experiencing homelessness and the number of interventions completed.  

4) Measure Target Calculation:  The projected target population is expected to grow annually as demonstrated by data collected over the past 3 years.  Targets are calculated annually based upon funding availability and staff configurations.

5) Frequency Measure is Reported: Quarterly (Fiscal Year)

Date page was last updated: October 2022