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WorldView

Project Hope Aims to Help California's Homeless

Aired March 11, 2000 - 6:20 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: Hopelessness is a major concern in California. On top of being homeless, an estimated 50,000 people living on the streets also suffer from mental illness.

CNN's Rusty Dornin tells us how a new experimental program in Sacramento is offering hope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone's been out here drinking.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They traverse train trestles...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't see any Tony, no blue gowns hanging around.

DORNIN: ... comb open fields and scour the urban underbelly -- a posse on a hunt for the homeless.

JERRY SIMPSON, PROJECT HOPE: You look for tarps, encampments, even footprints in the mud.

DORNIN: Project Hope, an experimental program in California, seeks out those on the streets suffering from mental illness.

DEPUTY MATT REALI, PROJECT HOPE: Most of the homeless, mentally ill we contact are paranoid, yes. That's why they're homeless. They just don't trust anybody.

Where did you sleep last night?

BETTY SLAYTON, HOMELESS PERSON: Under my leaky tarp.

DORNIN: Sixty-two-year-old Betty Slayton hasn't trusted anyone for years. On the streets since she was 42, Slayton fears that people are trying to poison her. The Project Hope team tries to talk her into coming in from the cold.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're very important to us. That's why we come back out here and make sure you're safe.

DORNIN: California began releasing the less seriously mentally ill from institutions in the '60s. The hope was they'd get help in their own communities. But experts say services for them were never adequately developed. Now there are tens of thousands mentally ill homeless on the streets here.

REALI: Hey, how you doing?

DORNIN: Deputy Matt Reali, of the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, and his team offer options.

REALI: We try and calm them down and offer a hand, shake their hand, introduce ourselves, and let them know what we're here to do.

There's nothing we can do for now to get you off the streets? It's freezing out here. I'm freezing right now.

(LAUGHTER)

DORNIN (on camera): When the team first approaches folks on the street, the answer to the question, "Do you need any help?" is usually always no. It takes tenacity. And the team comes back again and again.

Steve Anderson got talked into getting off the streets and now works part time for the mental health program Turning Point.

STEVE ANDERSON, FORMERLY HOMELESS: They provided the medication, the psychiatric care, room and board, doctors, bus passes. They completely took you in.

REALI: If you find out that you need help, you can just call us.

DORNIN: Reali says just getting people into shelters doesn't solve much. If they're abusing drugs or alcohol, the efforts are to get them into rehab.

On this day, they've talked Betty into coming in for help.

SLAYTON: I've had a lot of hardship, and it's not safe out there.

DORNIN: California's governor wants to double the $10 million funding for the program.

SLAYTON: Yeah, that's how.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:: Is that good?

DORNIN: Here success is measured one step at a time.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Sacramento, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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