MOBILE — The Mobile City Council on Tuesday authorized Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis to apply for up to $200,000 in federal funding to expand the city’s Homeless Outreach Team, a small unit that pairs police officers with behavioral health and outreach specialists. The money would come through the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Policing Development Microgrants Program, and the resulting two-year grant would require no local matching funds if awarded.
“What we know is that we need a more robust response to our, you know, unhoused population,” Cheriogotis said. The mayor’s framing, delivered during the council’s discussion of the application, acknowledged what outreach workers and downtown business owners have observed for months: the number of people living unsheltered in and around the city center has grown more visible, and the systems built to help them have struggled to keep pace.
A team of two
The city’s homeless outreach team currently consists of two dedicated staff members who work alongside police officers, nonprofit organizations and community partners to connect people with shelter, food, health care and other services. That model, pairing social-service professionals with law enforcement rather than relying on either alone, reflects a shift in how cities across the country have approached street homelessness, moving from a posture of enforcement toward one of engagement aimed at long-term housing and treatment.
The division of labor is the point. The team’s outreach specialists bring detailed knowledge of the local service landscape that patrol officers cannot reasonably be expected to maintain on their own, while the officers bring the authority and safety training that occasionally become necessary in the field. A co-responder team can assess on the spot whether a person needs a treatment program, a clinic appointment, help applying for benefits or simply a safe place to sleep that night, and then return to the same people week after week until a connection takes hold.
Behavioral health sits at the center of that work. A significant share of people living unsheltered experience mental illness, substance use or both, and family members who call the city for help often say the same thing: they want treatment for a loved one who will not seek it voluntarily.
District 2 Councilwoman Samantha Ingram praised the outreach team’s work but questioned whether two people are enough to meet the community’s needs. “What are we going to do this year to make a difference? Again, when you think about a team of two, led by Dr. Young, is that really enough to do the work that needs to be done here in Mobile?” Ingram asked.
Cheriogotis said that while the team is small, its reach extends beyond its two staff members. “They work in conjunction with our nonprofit partners out there, our community partners, our police department, so many others. So, they’re working with a much larger team than two. But still, you know, I think we can beef up what we’re doing,” he said.
What the expansion would fund
If the grant is awarded, the additional resources would allow the team to respond more quickly to encampment complaints and connect unhoused residents to social services, according to Dr. Kendell Young, the city’s Homeless Outreach Coordinator. “Whenever our unhoused population needs assistance, we’re there,” Young said, adding that building trust with unhoused residents is essential to getting them connected with resources.
Faster response is not simply a matter of convenience. When an encampment report sits unaddressed, frustration builds among nearby residents and business owners, and the window to engage the people living there can close if the site disperses before outreach arrives. When a complaint does come in, the team’s first task is rarely removal: outreach workers visit the site, learn who is staying there and what brought each person to that spot, and begin the slower work of matching people to openings in shelters or treatment programs. Clearance of a site, when it happens, is meant to be the end of that process rather than the beginning of it, so that people do not simply relocate a few blocks away and start the cycle again.
The Homeless Outreach Team already works to address illegal squatting and reduce repeat calls for service while rebuilding trust between unhoused residents and city agencies. A single person in crisis can generate dozens of emergency calls in a year, each one consuming patrol hours, dispatch time and sometimes hospital resources. When outreach resolves the underlying situation, the cycle breaks.
Expanded capacity would also mean more sustained follow-up. Connecting an unhoused resident to social services is rarely a single handoff; it often involves paperwork, transportation, waitlists and setbacks that require someone to keep track of the case over time. Outreach efforts with the staffing to return repeatedly are the ones that ultimately move people into housing.
The grant program
Grant requests of this kind follow a familiar rhythm in city government: before a federal application is filed, the council must authorize the mayor or a designee to act on the city’s behalf, ensuring that elected representatives have a say in which funding streams the administration pursues.
The Justice Department is distributing roughly $6.7 million nationally through the competitive microgrant program this cycle. The Community Policing Development Microgrants Program is administered through the department’s COPS Office, which for decades has directed federal support to state and local agencies for projects that advance community policing principles such as problem-solving, partnerships and organizational transformation. Microgrants are deliberately smaller than the office’s flagship hiring programs, targeting modest, focused projects that a single agency can launch and measure.
The absence of a local match mattered to council members weighing the request against a budget already pulled among public safety, drainage, roads and other priorities. Requests for federal grant programs arrive on fixed deadlines, and authorizing the mayor to apply cost the city nothing while preserving the option; declining would have guaranteed Mobile forgoes the funding cycle entirely. Federal awards of this type also carry accountability expectations, with recipients documenting how funds were spent, tracking the number of people served and reporting outcomes back to the funding agency. City officials say those requirements align with the way the team already measures its work, and that the reporting burden is manageable for a grant of this size.
Those who decline help
“I think we also have to look at the people who don’t necessarily want those services and what that means for us as a city and them as individuals,” Cheriogotis said. The remark touched on one of the hardest problems in the field: a portion of the unsheltered population declines shelter placement because of mental illness, addiction, prior bad experiences in congregate shelters, or simple preference, and outreach teams have few tools to compel help for adults who are not an immediate danger to themselves or others.
Young’s emphasis on trust reflects a lesson learned across the outreach field: people who have spent months or years on the street have usually been failed by institutions before, and they do not accept help from strangers they do not believe. Outreach workers earn credibility by doing what they say they will do and returning when they promise. Unhoused residents who trust the team are also more likely to report crimes committed against them, flag safety hazards and cooperate when a dangerous situation needs intervention.
Panhandling and safety
The discussion also turned to panhandling, with Cheriogotis saying the city is exploring additional ways to address safety concerns. “We do not want to limit people’s rights to free speech, but when it’s causing unsafe situations — people walking in and out of traffic, coming up closely into someone’s window or vehicle — these are problems,” he said.
The mayor’s careful phrasing reflected a legal landscape that has narrowed cities’ options considerably: federal courts have repeatedly struck down panhandling bans and aggressive-solicitation ordinances as restrictions on protected speech, leaving municipalities to regulate conduct, time and place rather than the asking itself. Ordinances aimed at behavior, such as standing in traffic medians or approaching vehicles in travel lanes, have fared better in court than outright bans. The mayor has asked city staff to continue developing options that respect both the rights of people asking for help and the safety concerns raised by residents and commuters.
Working within a larger network
Mobile’s effort unfolds against the particular pressures of the Gulf Coast, where summer heat, humidity and hurricane-season storms make life outdoors more dangerous than in many parts of the country. Longstanding local providers such as the Waterfront Rescue Mission have served the area’s homeless population for decades, and city agencies work alongside nonprofits and faith groups to coordinate shelter space and services. An expanded city team would plug into that existing network rather than replace it.
Behind the street-level encounters sits a coordination role that touches every major service institution in the city. Shelters, soup kitchens, hospital discharge planners, the county health department, courts and nonprofit case managers all touch the same individuals, and the outreach team functions as the connective tissue that keeps a person from falling between systems.
What comes next
The application now moves forward under the mayor’s authority, and a formal award, if it comes, would follow the Justice Department’s review process on the agency’s own timeline. Until then, the Homeless Outreach Team continues operating at its current strength.
Tuesday’s discussion made clear that the council intends to keep the issue on its agenda regardless of the grant outcome. Ingram’s questioning signaled that the district she represents expects measurable progress, and the mayor’s response signaled agreement with the premise even while defending the team’s record. If the award comes through, the practical question Ingram raised — whether two people are enough — will be answered in increments: added staff capacity, expanded hours of coverage, or deeper coordination with partner agencies, rather than a single dramatic change.