{"id":152925,"date":"2026-02-06T00:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/152925\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T00:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T00:19:11","slug":"lubbock-takes-multifaceted-approach-to-help-people-who-need-shelter-public-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/152925\/","title":{"rendered":"Lubbock takes multifaceted approach to help people who need shelter, public services"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock\u2019s locally-led continuum of care<\/a> marked its first full year of service Thursday, bringing together dozens of organizations to address what officials describe as a chronic community-wide crisis.<\/p>\n

Organizations helping on the front lines have identified housing as one of the biggest resources lacking in the community for several years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just police. It\u2019s not just the city. It\u2019s all the organizations that utilize their efforts and funding for that,\u201d said Sgt. Steven Bergen, who has served with Lubbock Police\u2019s Homeless Outreach Team for a decade.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Bergen has seen firsthand why housing assistance is critical. He says one of the first people he helped as part of Homeless Outreach was a veteran who lived in a wooden box under the Marsha Sharp Freeway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things I would say, just as us as individuals, we take for granted of having a roof over our heads, right? And it isn\u2019t until you have that severe weather of it being, 0 degrees and snow on the ground, you stand out there, you realize, hey, this is literally life or death,\u201d Sgt. Bergen said.<\/p>\n

Officers can only offer help, they cannot force a person to accept it. Sgt. Bergen said that\u2019s where community education comes in and the Lubbock Continuum of Care helps with that.<\/p>\n

Echo West Texas<\/a> leads the umbrella of agencies under the COC.<\/p>\n

\u201cEcho has a collaboration portal with 14 other agencies and they all can start to make referrals, not just housing agencies, but supportive services,\u201d Valeria Longoria, the Executive Director for Echo West Texas said. \u201cSo, we can see where people are going in their journey and walk alongside a track to see what happened afterwards. Do they still need more support? What other things are we missing? Where are the gaps in our community?\u201d s<\/p>\n

More than a dozen organizations provide monthly community days that assist people on or below the poverty line as well as those experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not just handing out pamphlets, but they\u2019re connecting them with direct care. Like UMC, we have a nurse there who\u2019s also providing direct care, wound care,\u201d Longoria said.<\/p>\n

Services range from housing and medical assistance to clothing and haircuts, all meant to help people take the next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just feel like they fit in with everyone else when they\u2019re going to work because it\u2019s really hard on their side when they do secure a job and they want to fit in. They want to maintain that job, and they don\u2019t want to be treated any difficult just because of homeless. When, they feel this expectation of becoming independent, but it\u2019s really hard if they\u2019re being judged based on their current situation,\u201d Longoria said.<\/p>\n

Longoria says the Lubbock COC is working on entering into a second phase, which would expand services and help more people have access to a warm, safe place to sleep.<\/p>\n

Echo West Texas hosts a community day every first Thursday of the month at Kingdom Co-Op at 2025 Avenue T.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock\u2019s locally-led continuum of care marked its first full year of service Thursday, bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-152925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}