These Midwestern Cities Are Finding New Success Addressing Housing Encampments

Cities across the Midwest have embraced a new way of addressing unsheltered homelessness by helping swiftly connect people with services and housing opportunities. Tulsa’s unsheltered population fell 31% between 2025 and 2026, and the city reports no remaining major encampments downtown. Indianapolis moved more than 220 people from the street into housing since last summer. Cleveland has housed more than 200 people since 2024, enough to convince its city council to extend its program another two years. The efforts are adaptations of the Direct-to-Housing model, developed by Houston-based Clutch Consulting in 2022 to help its home city reduce its unsheltered homeless population. The model streamlines pathways to housing by surging services like street-based medical care, outreach, and case management to a particular encampment for between four and six weeks. People engaged with the program are then placed into temporary housing with rental subsidies for up to a year while they find a more permanent solution. On the back end, Clutch Consulting also works with city departments, management districts, and property owners to ensure encampments remain permanently closed after people are in housing. That includes maintaining “presence or patrol” in a specific area to immediately engage people who experience unsheltered homelessness, and redirect them out of the area, explains Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant at Clutch and Houston’s first Special Assistant to the Mayor for Homeless Initiatives. “The whole point is we’re not going to allow a new encampment to become established in this environment,” Semple tells Next City. “We’re going to intervene immediately, and we’re going to force a re-direction because if those individuals remain there, those individuals can’t get the help and the support they need.” Broadly speaking, the initiative has shown considerable promise. Across the nine cities listed on Clutch’s website that have adopted a local Direct-to-Housing model, roughly 85% of the people engaged do not return to homelessness within a year. Partner cities like Dallas and New Orleans have seen greater-than-20% reductions in unsheltered homelessness in just a couple of years. The Direct-to-Housing model has also shown it can address a couple of major issues homeless service providers face. For instance, Semple said the model can help cities use their limited financial resources for homeless services more efficiently by combining municipal, nonprofit, and private initiatives. That is happening at a time when federal budget cuts and policy shifts have nearly drained funding available for Housing First and other services. At the same time, Republican-held legislatures in states like Indiana, Oklahoma and Missouri have passed new laws prohibiting camping on public property in the wake of the 2024 Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson. These laws impose criminal penalties on people who are unsheltered, which can make it more difficult for people to leave homelessness by adding criminal charges to their background checks. “Communities across the country are looking for a ‘right now’ solution to homelessness,” says Rosanne Haggerty, CEO of Community Solutions, the nonprofit that has helped develop the Direct-to-Housing mode in partnership with Clutch. “And this is one that works.” Morgan Smith, Clutch Consulting's director of system transformation, helps a client move in. (Photo courtesy Clutch Consulting) Creating a new path forward Semple explains that the Direct-to-Housing model was born out of a pandemic-driven need to quickly connect people who are homeless with non-congregate shelter. Unfortunately, cities like Houston did not have the shelter capacity to meet the needs of people who were unsheltered at the time. So, the group began devising a way to get those people into housing as quickly as possible. The model seeks to accelerate work that many cities are already doing to address unsheltered homelessness. For instance, Semple says Clutch works with cities to develop a menu of targeted resources that get people in encampments into housing instead of simply putting them on a list. Then, Clutch works with local elected officials to devise a maintenance plan to ensure the encampment does not reappear once people are in housing. “It’s built on all of the principles that are already in play in the homeless response system,” Semple says. “But what it challenged us to do is take all of those principles and apply them in a more targeted and accelerated way, and then work with our partners to then maintain closure behind those direct to housing activities.” The model was launched at a critical time for homeless service providers. The growth of unsheltered homelessness during the pandemic created a public perception that efforts to reduce homelessness weren’t working, Haggerty says. At the same time, the pandemic-induced surge of funding for services has waned, forcing many municipal leaders to find creative ways to maximize the limited funding available to them. “It’s a reality check,” Haggerty says, one that is generating positive results across the Midwest. Haggerty explains that there are several benefits to the Direct-to-Housing model outside of getting people who are unsheltered into housing. She says the model can resolve common frustrations mayors and chiefs of police feel about addressing homelessness, and give them more time to address real public safety threats. The model has also shown promise at combining the efforts of municipal, nonprofit, and private businesses to address homelessness, she says. Semple adds that landlord engagement is also a key part of the model that gets overlooked because of its focus on resolving unsheltered homelessness. Clutch’s model includes funding to arm specialists to negotiate with landlords to provide units for people who are leaving homelessness. The model also includes funding for some property management priorities such as helping them with inspections, voucher applications, and managing tenancy risks. “We’re offering a partnership that helps to balance or manage more effectively that risk, and it’s person-centered,” Semple says. Formerly unhoused clients in Tulsa move into their new home. (Photo courtesy Housing Solutions Tulsa) Clearing encampments in Tulsa One city where the Direct-to-Housing model has had an immediate impact is Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since Tulsa launched its Direct-to-Housing model, the city has seen a 31% reduction in unsheltered homelessness between 2025 and 2026, from 496 people to 339, according to local Point in Time Count data. Tulsa has struggled with unsheltered homelessness in recent years for a variety of reasons. Mark Smith, CEO of Housing Solutions Tulsa, explains that the average rent in the city has increased by 26% since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, which has caused several low-income households to lose their housing. Tulsa is also a major transportation hub, and some people become homeless for reasons as simple as missing their bus home, Smith says. Safe Move Tulsa, the city’s local adaptation of Clutch’s model, was launched in 2025 after the city’s unsheltered homeless population nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024, up to 534 people. The program includes nearly a dozen local agencies that coordinate encampment responses with the goal of providing housing for 1,300 housing-insecure people. So far, more than 500 people who are housing insecure, including people who were already in shelters, have been placed in housing since September 2025, according to the program’s website. There are also no more major encampments in downtown Tulsa, Smith adds. Smith says Safe Move has also helped improve relations between police, code enforcement, and people who are unsheltered. Camping on public property is illegal both in Tulsa and across Oklahoma, which often required law enforcement to respond to cases of homelessness. The issue was compounded by Tulsa’s lack of available shelter, Smith adds. “Many people would be on the housing waitlist for the homeless response system for many years, and so there wasn’t resolution that was happening,” Smith says. Meanwhile, police officers and first responders had grown tired of pushing encampments around the city. “It just wasn’t satisfying for anyone,” he adds. Phase one of the program was launched with a $6 million investment from the City of Tulsa, as well as $4 million in funding from local businesses and foundations. Smith says the city has committed funding for the additional two phases of the program, and Housing Solutions Tulsa is currently fundraising for the remainder. Going forward, Smith says the city needs about $20 million to execute Phase Two of Safe Move Tulsa, which is slated to begin in late 2026. The phase will focus on creating more bed turnover in local shelters. To sustain the system, Tulsa estimates it needs about $30 million annually. The site of a former encampment in Indianapolis. More than 100 people living at this site were rehoused through Streets to Home Indy. (Photo by TopShot Aerial Photography, courtesy of Clutch Consulting) Indianapolis’ timely response Indianapolis is also experimenting with a program called Streets to Home Indy, which aims to rehouse 350 people experiencing homelessness by the end of 2026 using a local version of Clutch Consulting’s Direct-to-Housing model. Like Tulsa’s iteration, Streets to Home Indy is a three-phase program that combines resources from nine local organizations to get people who are unsheltered into housing instead of being arrested or fined for sleeping outside when there is nowhere else to go. The program, which is led by Indiana’s Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (CHIP), received a $2.7 million investment from the city as well as $2.7 million from philanthropic, faith, corporate, and individual donors, local news station WFYI reported. The first phase of the program has helped house 220 people who were homeless since it was launched in June 2025, according to the report. The second phase will address chronic unsheltered homelessness and the third phase will focus on homelessness prevention. Chelsea Haring-Cozzi, CEO of CHIP, told WFYI that the results so far have been encouraging. “I think what’s most encouraging is that we’re really proving people can move directly from the streets into stable housing much faster when we work together and with that kind of urgency and coordination,” Haring-Cozzi told the outlet. Streets to Home Indy was launched at a time when Indianapolis has struggled to make a dent in its overall homeless population. According to the latest Point in Time Count, there were more than 1,800 people experiencing homelessness in the city in 2026, which is nearly the same number of people who were counted in 2025. At the same time, Republican lawmakers in the Indiana state house passed a bill outlawing public camping on public property. People sleeping outside will be given a 48-hour notice to relocate or risk incarceration. The new law may also result in criminal penalties, which can compound existing challenges to obtaining housing. Despite those headwinds, Streets to Home helped Indianapolis record a greater-than 17% decline in unsheltered homelessness in just one year. In 2026, there were 272 people who were unsheltered in Indianapolis compared to the 331 unsheltered people counted in 2025, according to the data. Haring-Cozzi told WFYI that the program needs to identify long-term funding sources, which may be complicated by uncertainty surrounding federal funding. ‘This is the way’ in Cleveland Quickly resolving cases of unsheltered homelessness can also help people feel a greater sense of belonging, as Cleveland’s model has shown. Cleveland launched its local Direct-to-Housing model, called A Home for Every Neighbor, in 2024, to address the rise of unsheltered homelessness. It was created using $2 million in local funding as $2.7 million from federal pandemic funding, Signal Cleveland reported. Read more: From Tent to House in 11 days: A Close Look at Cleveland’s New Response to Homelessness Like other models, A Home for Every Neighbor combines resources from Cuyahoga County, the Office of Homeless Services (OHS), and the Cleveland/Cuyahoga County Continuum of Care. There are also incentives available for local landlords to increase the amount of housing opportunities for people who are homeless. Since 2024, the program has helped more than 200 people who lived unsheltered find stable housing. Signal Cleveland recently shared the journey Marthe Marie Vernet, her son, and their family dog, Gorgeous, went through after they became homeless following a dispute with their landlord. They lived unsheltered because friends and family could not bring them in, and no local shelters served families, according to the report. That was until an outreach worker with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless contacted Vernet and started her application for a new home. Within two weeks, Vernet and her son were out of the tent and living in a two-story home in Ohio City, the report added. Vernet told the outlet recently that it was an answer to her prayers. “Every day I start doing something to make it nice,” Vernet told Signal Cleveland. “I clean the wood [floors and molding]. I like wood, so I make it shiny. … I try little by little to make it nice.” The success of the program convinced Cleveland’s city council to invest another $1.9 million to extend the program for an additional two years. Private funders chipped in another $530,000 as well, Signal Cleveland reported. “In the scheme of our overall city budget, this is not breaking the bank,” Cleveland Ward 7 Council Member Austin Davis told Signal Cleveland. “It’s the equivalent of paving four streets — which is important too. But there are no other solutions for chronic homelessness coming, and there are no other methods that work. This is the way.” This story has been corrected to remove Iowa from the list of states that banned camping in public property. The legislation did not make it past committee due to pushback from local advocates; however, Des Moines and a few other cities in Iowa have implemented their own camping bans. This article is part of Backyard, a newsletter exploring scalable solutions to make housing fairer, more affordable and more environmentally sustainable. Subscribe to our weekly Backyard newsletter. Robert Davis is an award-winning independent journalist in Denver, Colorado. He writes about real estate and social issues like poverty and homelessness. His work has appeared in publications such as Forbes, Business Insider, Shelterforce, The Colorado Sun and the Denver Voice. Add to the Discussion Next City sustaining members can comment on our stories. Keep the discussion going! Join our community of engaged members by donating today. Already a sustaining member? Login here.