The Brief

If you’ve lost touch with a loved one and suspect they are living on the street, in their car or in shelters, it can be difficult to find them again. Once you’ve found them (or if you never lost touch) it can be just as hard to figure out how to help. CalMatters has compiled some tips from people who have been through that process, or have helped others through it.

How to find a homeless loved one

• File a missing persons report, suggested Gabby Cordell, director of reunion services for the San Francisco-based nonprofit Miracle Messages. That way, every time the missing person has contact with law enforcement or enters a hospital, that report should come up, she said. The officer or hospital may tell the person that their family is looking for them. In some cases, the facility may even reach out to whoever filed the report.
  Families also can submit their case to Miracle Messages for help at miraclemessages.org/findthem.
  
• Turn to social media. Robin Wells Plantz created the Missing & Homeless Facebook group 10 years ago to help reconnect families. She posts the stories of missing people, complete with photos and identifying details, in the hope that someone will see it and recognize the person. The page now has more than 100,000 followers, and Plantz has lost count of how many dozens of people it has helped reunite. She invites anyone searching for a homeless loved one to send a message to her via that group.
  She also encourages people to create a new Facebook page dedicated to finding their loved one, and share it as widely as possible. That way, anyone with a tip can send it to that page.
  
• Hire a private investigator.
  
• Try Googling, just in case your loved one was photographed or quoted in a news article about homelessness.
  
• Talk to street outreach workers. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens and other facilities (especially medical facilities) probably won’t tell you if they’ve seen your loved one, in an effort to protect their privacy, Plantz said. You’ll have better luck asking the people who go to encampments and hand out food and other necessities, she said. Make fliers with your loved one’s photo and hand them out to as many outreach workers as you can, she advised. 
  
• Don’t focus on their name. Many unhoused people go by a street name, or multiple street names, that are different from the name you know. When asking about your loved one, show photos instead, Plantz suggested. 
  
• Be careful about sharing your phone number. Don’t put your phone number on a flier or Facebook page that will be widely distributed — that can lead to harassment and other problems, Plantz cautioned. Instead, direct people to Facebook or other places to report tips.
  
• Don’t give up. Cordell remembers one case where she reconnected a man with his family after 40 years. In another case, a woman in Southern California was getting ready to hold a memorial for her sister, when the sister turned up on a street corner in San Francisco. “That’s the biggest thing: Don’t give up,” said Plantz, who has been searching for her mother for 30 years. “Would you want somebody to give up on you?”

How to help a homeless loved one

• “Be patient. Manage expectations,” Cordell said. Don’t assume that you will be able to solve your loved one’s homelessness quickly or easily. “A lot happens for someone to typically end up in the situation they’re in, which means we can’t expect an immediate solution or an immediate fix,” said Heather Griffin, director of shelter and services for Silicon Valley-based nonprofit LifeMoves.
  
• Allow time to repair the relationship. It will take time for both sides to heal emotionally, Griffin said. 
  
• Ask questions. “I wouldn’t try to tell them to do anything,” said Deborah O’Dell, who runs a support group for the families of people with mental illnesses in Los Angeles County, which includes multiple participants who have a homeless loved one. “Just ask: ‘Hey, what’s your day like? What’s going on? What are you doing?’ And just listen. Don’t be judgmental. Just be an ear and listen. And then ask, ‘Is there anything that I can do to help?’ If there’s not, don’t try to do anything. Because you’ll just push them away from you.”
  
• Touch them. “Be willing to give them a hug,” O’Dell said. “Just show them unconditional love.”
  
• Call to check in. When O’Dell’s adult son was living in his truck, she called him every other day to make sure he had food, blankets and other necessities. If he needed something, she put money in his bank account. 
  
• You can still help, even if your loved one doesn’t want to or isn’t ready to come inside – or if you aren’t ready to invite them into your home. You might be able to help them with other needs, such as accessing health care, searching for jobs or signing up for social services, Griffin said. 
  
• Provide an address. It’s often difficult for unhoused people to receive money from Social Security and other benefits because they don’t have a fixed address. Consider letting them use your address to get checks and other important mail. You could also offer to keep their birth certificate and other identification safe, until they need it to apply for housing or other services. 
  
• Create boundaries and stick to them if you invite your loved one into your home, O’Dell said. That could mean, for example, requiring that your loved one go to therapy once a month, or prohibiting drugs in your home. 
  
• Understand that sometimes, you won’t be able to get your loved one off the streets – at least not yet. “Sometimes, you’ve got to love them where they’re at,” Plantz said. “And that’s the hardest. That’s the hardest of it all, is loving them where they’re at.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.