On a Sunday morning in April, the parking lot of The Church Without Walls’ Eldridge campus transformed into a one-stop hub of care for the unhoused.
The drive, organized by District F Council Member Tiffany D. Thomas, included mobile showers, haircuts, medical exams, foot care, benefits enrollment, housing screenings, and, for some, the first real shower in nearly a month.
Thomas, who chairs the city’s Housing and Affordability Committee, said the event quickly became a window into a crisis that, as she put it, is “hidden in plain sight.”
The initiative, she said, came out of her frustration with a lack of warming centers she observed during the winter freezes in 2025 and this year.
“What we realized is that we had individuals experiencing homelessness who were resistant to leaving their encampments, so we decided to go to them,” Thomas said. “So we decided to offer services based on their feedback.”
During the last freeze, Thomas said her team provided 452 meals three times a day, serviced 67 walk-ins at Agape Christian Fellowship, and visited 17 encampments.
The team also learned that individuals were ready to work but faced barriers that prevented them from doing so.
According to regional counts conducted by the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, 3,325 people were homeless in Harris, Fort Bend, and Montgomery counties in 2025, an increase of 45 people from the prior year’s count.
The people behind the statistics
The initiative served more than 40 attendees, who could take showers in the four mobile showers stationed at the venue.
Also in attendance were medical professionals who tended to the unhoused guests at the drive, voter drive volunteers who helped those with identification fill out necessary forms, veteran services for unhoused veterans, and case management professionals who guided the individuals through service stations and follow-up scheduling.
Kenya Jackson, a homeless woman, told the Defender that her biggest challenge is safety, and she is in need of a job and housing. A few months ago, Smith was employed at LA Crawfish on Highway 6. When she lost her job, she was unable to find another.
“I want something that’s steady, that I know that I can depend on, so that I won’t have to put myself in danger, being in the middle of the street for whatever amount of hours that I have to do,” she said. “The biggest thing is my safety. I don’t play with safety.”
Jermaine Smith, another attendee who used to work as a construction laborer and has been without a home for three and a half years, described a community organizing itself just to survive Houston winters.
“Before I knew it, it was eight tents set up outside, and I had like another 15 to 20 people inside a building, all trying to stay warm,” he recalled.
He came to the event specifically hoping to get his ID in order, a first step toward his promise to himself.
“It’s April now,” he said. “No matter what, by August, I want to be off the streets.”
They were joined by Mary, who had been without a shower for nearly a month. She had grown up homeless, bounced through Child Protective Services (CPS) group homes from Fort Worth to Waco to Austin to San Antonio and finally to Houston. On the day of the drive, she needed an ID and help with housing.
The ID problem
Most of the unhoused folks the Defender interviewed returned to the issue of stolen or lost identification documents. Without it, they could not apply for housing, enroll in benefits, see a doctor, or vote.
Georgia Rodriguez, an outreach coordinator with VoteRiders, a voting rights organization, was on-site specifically to address this gap.
“There’s been a gap of services on the west side of Houston. We don’t have many non-profit providers, so we have organized today to create that machine, that strike force, so we can reach the people on the west side of Houston and do what we know that we’ve done best as a national model.”
Tiffany D. Thomas, Houston District F Council Member
“We get a lot of unhoused folks coming to us because they need an ID for housing applications, for government assistance, programming,” she said. “Everything starts with your ID in America.”
Rodriguez said the organization helps vulnerable individuals obtain their birth certificate, Social Security card, Texas ID, or any other supporting documents they need to obtain their ID. It covers the fees and transportation to the DPS or Social Security office.
The cost is a real barrier. In Texas, a birth certificate alone can run close to $40, an insurmountable sum for someone living on the street, Rodriguez said, adding that the bureaucratic complexity of booking appointments online has become a wall of its own, particularly for elderly individuals.
A representative from US Vets also added that homeless veterans in Houston, a majority of them African American, seek help from the organization in large numbers, especially for housing and DD-214 assistance, a document that proves discharge from service.
Those doing the work
Felicia Lewis, a project manager at Texas Health and Human Services with 25 years in social services, says receiving benefits is not a straightforward process. Lewis and her team helped residents apply for SNAP and Medicaid, highlighting the challenges that follow federal funding cuts to both programs, which are set to be reduced by over $1 trillion over the next decade.
When cuts hit, Lewis’ office feels it immediately. Clients arrived frustrated, unsure how they would feed their families.
“They’re coming upset, thinking ‘how am I supposed to do this’,” she said. “One of the biggest challenges is letting them know, unfortunately, it was never designed to take care of your total breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was supplemental. When you purchase, you’ve got to purchase with that in mind.”
Senator Borris Miles’s district office also had representatives on hand, announcing the upcoming opening of a satellite office at the Alief Neighborhood Center, a location within his Senate district, to bring state-level services closer to residents who need housing assistance and job location support.
The Houston Health Department’s presence, through Stephanie Oakland of Harris County Public Health, rounded out the services with public health preparedness booklets and Narcan distribution, and informed attendees about the county’s holistic response team, a non-police mental health unit that will conduct wellness checks and transport individuals to the hospital when needed.
Not a one-time event
Thomas said the mobile showers drive will be a recurring focus.
“Our intention is that we’ll continue to do this periodically so we can have a cadence and continue to build credibility in the community,” she said.
She added that the groundwork requires months of canvassing encampments, establishing trust among the unhoused, distributing food, and handing out business cards with direct office contacts.
“There’s been a gap of services on the west side of Houston,” Thomas said. “We don’t have many non-profit providers, so we have organized today to create that machine, that strike force, so we can reach the people on the west side of Houston and do what we know that we’ve done best as a national model.”
