Early Intervention helps individuals and families quickly find safe housing options so they can avoid entering shelter or experiencing homelessness for long periods of time.
Local Impact: A local dad lost his job and his relationship with his significant other in the same week. Unable to afford rent, he and his young son ended up sleeping in their car. He found a new job quickly, but just couldn't afford the deposit to get back into an apartment. Our Early Intervention program stepped in with one-time financial assistance, and within weeks, father and son were home.
Early Intervention is part of a broader strategy to:
The average cost of this intervention is $1,250 per person.
Early Intervention is a problem-solving approach focused on helping people find safe alternatives to emergency shelter as quickly as possible.
Instead of assuming shelter is the only option, trained staff work with each person to:
Explore safe places they may be able to stay (like with friends or family)
Identify what’s getting in the way of those options
Provide short-term support to help make a plan work
This might include help with transportation, mediation, or one-time financial assistance to bridge gaps for people to get back on their feet.
These two approaches are closely related, but happen at different times.
Prevention helps people remain housed before they lose their housing.
Early Intervention helps people after they have lost their housing
Early Intervention supports people who are or will be homeless tonight and are at the front steps of the homeless response system. It focuses on helping them avoid entering the system or exit it quickly.
If you need help now, call 405-838-1050 or visit one of the following emergency shelters: Salvation Army, City Care or City Rescue Mission.
Most people assume homelessness happens to people who aren't working. One local man had a job at Sonic the entire time he was sleeping under a bridge after losing his housing. Our outreach team found him just four days in and made a referral to our Early Intervention program. A single investment in the first month's rent and a deposit was all it took to get him home and close the chapter on homelessness for him. That's what Early Intervention makes possible.