Module 5a. Spotlighting Local Collaborations: Houston, Texas, Police-Court Partnerships
Harris County, Texas, is home to an exceptional cross-agency collaboration of law enforcement, courts, and behavioral health providers coming together to divert people experiencing homelessness from the justice system. This effort includes partners from the police Homeless Outreach Team (HOT Team), the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, and the Harris County Mental Health Jail Diversion Program, all coming together to ensure that people experiencing homelessness are not criminalized but rather provided with needed support and services. The Harris County partners come together regularly in roundtable and one-on-one discussions to provide individualized and effective attention to local community members in need. Through a shared understanding and commitment to this population and the community at large, the Harris County team provides a good case study in what has worked for one municipality. In the linked video, the panel shares recommendations for other communities.
Panel Members
Wendy Baimbridge
Assistant Chief, Houston Police Department
Raymond Lomelo
Sergeant, Harris County Sheriff's Department
Denise Oncken, JD, MBA
Executive Bureau Chief
Special Victims and Mental Health Bureau
Assistant District Attorney
Harris County (Texas) District Attorney’s Office
Wayne Young, MBA, LPC, FACHE
Chief Executive Officer, The Harris Center for Mental Health & IDD
Panel facilitated by Bonnie Sultan, MA FMHC
Special Advisor, Center for Court Innovation
Recommendations
- Creating local solutions concerning homelessness is a community effort for which multi-agency collaborations are critical. By coming together to share expertise and resources, you strengthen not only your teams but also the supports provided to those in need of services.
- Educate your team and partners about the issues you seek to address. Bringing together multiagency partners allows all participants to learn about the shared mission and goals as well as current needs. Through this exchange of ideas and knowledge, you can motivate your team to work together to plan and implement successful interventions.
- Recognize the goals of your partners and clients and consider how you can help them achieve them. Often cross-agency collaborators are unclear on the vision, mission, and goals of their partnering agencies. Carving out time to talk about these core issues creates opportunities to identify shared goals and share resources. Though partners will not have identical missions and goals, they do share significant values that foster the chance to come together as a team to better serve clients and promote community safety.
- Trust is a vital component to partnerships. Knowing your partners’ goals and seeing them achieve these goals promotes trust among multiagency collaborations. By developing measures of success and reaching the milestones set, partners can continue to build trust with one another and with those they seek to serve in the community.
- Police training about behavioral health needs of people experiencing homelessness is critical. To ensure your agency’s officers get the best training, collaborate with local health authorities to educate your team, as well as to help develop community interventions.