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The Downtown Austin Alliance will launch the Homelessness Engagement Assistance Response Team, or HEART program, from Feb. 1 through July 31. The DAA will be managing the program alongside nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which runs the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless and the Eighth Street shelter for women and transgender clients.

In partnership with staff from Urban Alchemy, the nonprofit group that manages two downtown shelters, HEART will operate during daytime hours in the area between Congress Avenue and Brazos Street and Fourth Street and Ninth Street, as well the Fifth Street to Seventh Street blocks from Congress Avenue.

A new homeless outreach program is looking to pilot a new approach to address the needs of homeless individuals in downtown Austin. The Downtown Austin Alliance, in partnership with Urban Alchemy, is launching the Homelessness Engagement Assistance Response Team or HEART Austin.

The nonprofit Urban Alchemy trumpeted an impending Stanford University study last week that found drastically lowered crime where its community ambassadors were posted.

Urban Alchemy set out to provide a new model for public safety on downtown San Francisco streets afflicted by addiction, mental illness and homelessness. And according to Stanford University researchers, they’re on the right track.

Crime in parts of San Francisco where private public safety contractor Urban Alchemy is stationed is noticeably declining, according to a new study from Stanford University. The group, made up largely of formerly incarcerated individuals who use their lived experience and emotional intelligence to calm a person in crisis, is positioned at various intersections in the Tenderloin, Civic Center and…

They transform crime-filled streets with compassion, cleanliness and connection, and it appears to be working in one of San Francisco’s toughest neighborhoods. Tonight, numbers from the group Urban Alchemy point to the positive impact the program is having in the Tenderloin. The goal is conversion one block at a time.

Zakkary Haze, a care coordinator with Urban Alchemy, stands at the front door at the Eighth Street Shelter on Wednesday December 20, 2023.

To maintain the facility’s critical beds, Austin officials went on to consider the shelter’s temporary lease by the city and linking its operations with the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, or ARCH, next door. Both facilities came under the management of nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which was chosen last year to helm the ARCH after that facility’s previous management exited…

“Not only does it look different outside, but the lives of the people inside are also being changed.”

“What we found in the early iterations of safe sleep is that some people preferred tents because it gave them a sense of ownership.”

While some homeless advocates regard the tiny home cabins that have sprouted by the hundreds across Los Angeles as the minimum acceptable form of shelter, Urban Alchemy views tents as a way to create shelter quickly and cheaply without compromising the benefits most valued by people accustomed to living on the street — privacy, nourishment, security and a sense of…