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Guides & resources.

Plain-language guides on finding shelter, navigating housing programs, and understanding homelessness in Phoenix and beyond.

Evidence Brief

Maricopa Requires Diversion at Every Front Door. Its Rulebook Never Says What Diversion Is.

Every coordinated entry access site in the county is required to “apply a diversion strategy.” The binding policy never defines it, trains for it, or ties money to it — even though the CoC tells HUD it has a toolkit and flex funds. The study everyone cites was about handing out a month’s rent — and the only randomized trial of diversion itself has published nothing.

October 19, 2026 Read more →
Resource

Arizona Doesn’t Give Out GEDs

Arizona awards a High School Equivalency Diploma, and the GED is only one of three approved ways to earn it — all of which also require the Arizona Civics Test, whose passing score rose to 70 on January 1, 2026. Introducing the GED & HSE Pathway Finder, plus every free state-funded adult education program in Maricopa County.

September 21, 2026 Read more →
Resource

The Paper Clip Is the Barrier

Applications rarely die at the form. They die at “upload your pay stubs.” Introducing the Digital Literacy Quick-Start — eight short walkthroughs for email, attachments, video calls, portals, and scams, plus where to get a free computer, free internet, and a low-cost device in Maricopa County.

September 8, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

Phoenix Made “No Section 8” Illegal in 2023. The Evidence Says That Helps — Slowly, and Only Where Someone Enforces It.

HUD’s own paired-testing study found 78% of Fort Worth landlords refused vouchers outright — and 85% refused in the low-poverty neighborhoods where a voucher would do the most good. Source-of-income laws move that number, but the gains take three to five years, don’t get bigger when the penalties do, and have never been paired with a measurement of whether anyone enforces them.

September 3, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

More Than Half of Sheltered Homeless Adults Work. The Best Job Program Skips the “Job-Ready” Test.

Linked IRS records say the “get a job” instruction is backwards: 53% of sheltered homeless adults had formal earnings the year they were homeless — earnings that don’t come close to rent. The best-tested job program, IPS, skips readiness classes and reliably gets more people hired. What the trials show it delivers, what it doesn’t, and the one study where a job led all the way to housing.

September 3, 2026 Read more →
Resource

You Are Not Missing a Skill. You Are Missing a Door.

Most employment help opens with a readiness screening — are you stable enough, housed enough, documented enough. The strongest evidence says skip it and start the job search. Introducing the Employment Skills Self-Assessment: name the work you have already done and what is actually in the way, and see which free Phoenix program is built for it, who to call, and what to say.

September 1, 2026 Read more →
Resource

Most People Carrying a Warrant Are More Afraid of It Than They Need to Be

A bench warrant does not run a background check at a shelter door, and it almost never touches SNAP or AHCCCS eligibility — the federal rule that does is much narrower than people assume. Introducing the Warrant Resolution Explainer: the safest path to clearing a warrant in Maricopa County, who to call, and how the Regional Homeless Court can quash one entirely.

August 27, 2026 Read more →
Health

Free and Low-Cost Dental Care in Phoenix: Where to Go Without Insurance

A toothache turns a hard month into a dangerous one, and most adult AHCCCS plans cover almost no routine dental work. Here is the real map: a $60 emergency extraction at St. Vincent de Paul, walk-in emergency windows at NATIVE HEALTH, a dental center built for people experiencing homelessness on the Keys to Change Campus, and $70 teaching-clinic cleanings.

August 23, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

Everyone Cites the Same Two Studies for Medical Respite. One of Them Found It Cost More.

A bed to recover in after the hospital is the most obviously sensible idea in homeless health care. The evidence is one 96-person trial whose primary outcome was null, two observational studies from the 2000s — one of which measured a $5,994 cost increase — and a set of famous savings figures traceable to phone calls with program directors in 2010. Meanwhile Arizona’s Medicaid waiver pays for rent and deposits but not for this, and the comment window on the next one closes September 6.

August 20, 2026 Read more →
Resource

Nobody Should Have to Choose Between a Bed and Their Dog

People turn down shelter beds rather than give up an animal, and it gets logged as refusing services. It is nothing of the kind. Introducing the Pet-Friendly Resources Finder: the Maricopa County shelters that take pets, the programs that will hold your animal for 30 to 90 days and give them back, and the free pet food and vet care in between.

August 18, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

We Checked Our Own Numbers First. Two of Them Were Wrong.

Two figures this project had carried for weeks turned out to be wrong — housing vouchers lift 6.4 million people out of poverty, not 9.3 million, and the 2021 Child Tax Credit cost $109.5 billion, not $105 billion. Both were caught because the checking ran before the building. Introducing The Tax Ladder: a century of tax history, a sandbox, and twelve scored proposals.

August 18, 2026 Read more →
Employment

Free Job Help in Phoenix When You’re Experiencing Homelessness

Most job-search advice assumes you already have an ID, a phone, an address, clean clothes, and a ride. If you’re unhoused, those five things are the actual job. Which ARIZONA@WORK center to use (Phoenix and Maricopa County are separate systems), what St. Joseph the Worker requires before they can help, free Goodwill career centers, and how to ask for reentry services by name.

August 16, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

The Survey That Decides Who Gets Housed Was Never Validated. Phoenix Retired It Last Year.

For a decade most communities ranked people for housing with a questionnaire HUD called “evidence-informed” rather than evidence-based. The first independent test found its scores didn’t predict who would return to homelessness. It scored people of color lower. Its own developer abandoned it in 2020. Maricopa County retired it on June 30, 2025 — and the replacement had a scoring bug that pushed Black families down the list.

August 13, 2026 Read more →
Resource

The Letter You Haven’t Sent Yet: Introducing the Landlord Letter Generator

Most housing problems get worse because nothing was ever put in writing — and in Arizona, writing is often what starts the legal clock. Our new free tool covers eight situations, from a payment plan on back rent to a security deposit demand, and writes the finished letter in plain words with the statute behind it. Nothing is saved unless you ask it to be.

August 11, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

A Cooling Center Saves a Life Every Thousand Visits — or Every 1.6 Million. It Depends Who Walks In.

A systematic review found no study anywhere showing that real-world cooling centers reduce heat deaths. But two models of the same county land 1,600 times apart, and the only variable that changed was who walked in. When Maricopa County surveyed its own visitors, two-thirds had a permanent residence and 89% had air conditioning at home — while 208 of last year’s 430 heat deaths were people experiencing homelessness.

August 6, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

The Homeless Population Is Aging Faster Than the Country Is. That Changes What Works.

Adults 55 and older are now nearly one in five people experiencing homelessness, and the 65-plus group is projected to nearly triple by 2030. Nearly half first lose housing after 50. Their bodies test about fifteen years older than their birthdays — which quietly breaks shelters built around bunk beds, stairs, and standing in line. The evidence, the honest caveats, and the Maricopa County numbers.

July 30, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

A Lawyer in Eviction Court Keeps People Housed. Most Tenants Don’t Have One.

In eviction court, landlords almost always have a lawyer and tenants almost never do. Where cities close that gap with a right to counsel, evictions fall and families stay housed — New York, Cleveland, and Philadelphia all show it. The evidence, the honest caveats, and what it means for a Phoenix that files evictions at twice the national rate.

July 2, 2026 Read more →
Resource

Will I Qualify for Food Stamps? Introducing the SNAP Pre-Screener

Most people who could get SNAP food benefits never sign up — often because they can’t get a straight answer to one question: would I even qualify? Our new pre-screener answers it in about a minute, using Arizona’s real FY 2026 income limits, and points you to the fastest way to apply. Free, private, nothing stored.

June 30, 2026 Read more →
Resource

A Quiet Minute: A Free Breathing & Grounding Tool

Our new tool puts an animated breathing pacer (box breathing and 4-7-8) and the 5-4-3-2-1 senses exercise on one calm page. No sound needed, no account, nothing stored — built to steady the worst hour of a hard day, and you can stop any time.

June 16, 2026 Read more →
Evidence Brief

Camping Bans Move Homelessness. They Don't Reduce It.

The first nationwide study found no city where camping bans reduced homelessness — and forced displacement raises deaths among unsheltered people. What the evidence shows after Grants Pass, and what Arizona's Prop 312 and Phoenix's "The Zone" reveal about the limits of enforcement.

June 11, 2026 Read more →
Resource Guide

Free Food and Health Care in Sacramento

Where to find free food, meals, and free or low-cost health care in Sacramento — Sacramento Food Bank, Loaves & Fishes, Wellspring, WellSpace Health, plus how to replace your ID.

June 3, 2026 Read guide →

Published every Sunday and Thursday

New resource guides and evidence briefs every Sunday and Thursday. Check back for the latest.