"One of the biggest things in outreach is engagement," said Sabrina Rivera, who has been an outreach worker for House of Hope the past three years. Rivera was homeless in 2002, just after she'd given birth. "It takes time to develop trust with people who have been homeless for a significant amount of time. I didn't realize that there were so many people who had lost faith that anybody could help them. The resistance was real."

Of her own homelessness, she said: "You cry every day. Part of the passion that comes from what I do is that I know that these systems are failing people. People need to know that people care. So all of us — the outreach team — we show up and we say hello. We show up and we have a cup of coffee with you. We care about how your day is going. We're not just there to fill out some form. I think that's what differentiates the group we work with."