Evaluation of the Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST) Program

The Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST) program, developed to bring Salt Lake City (Utah) police and community outreach workers together to identify homeless individuals and connect them to community resources, encourages police to make referrals to services rather than issue citations and to decrease panhandling by encouraging the public to give money to homeless service providers instead.

In 2012, the Salt Lake City Police Department received an award from the COPS Office to expand the HOST program to fund a public awareness campaign, coordinate strategic planning efforts, and train homeless individuals to assist with outreach efforts. Salt Lake City contracted with the Utah Criminal Justice Center to examine the impact of the award on the program’s services and personnel. This report evaluates three primary components of the program: donations to homeless service providers, the homeless support group, and collaborative street outreach.

All community stakeholders interested in homeless outreach efforts.

This interactive report is based on the 2016 written publication of the same name, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). This online version was developed by the National Center for Policing Innovation (NCPI), formerly known as the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation, and was supported by cooperative agreement 2018-CK-WXK-001 by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).