The big picture
During its Jan. 7 meeting, Houston City Council authorized a one-year grant for the Harris Center’s Behavioral Health Response Team, or BHRT, which will serve approximately 250 individuals annually, according to agenda documents.
As part of the initiative, the Harris Center will partner with The Way Home—a coalition to prevent and end homelessness in Houston—to link individuals with behavioral health providers, substance use treatment, job training and other services.
The program aims to serve unhoused Houston residents as well as residents at risk of losing their home after being placed in a housing unit, per the proposal.
According to a breakdown of the approximately $949,000 grant, a large portion of the funding comes from the HOME Investment Partnership Program, a state initiative to expand safe and affordable housing for Texans. The grant also includes funding from the city’s End Street Homelessness Fund 2012.
Looking back
The grant is part of a broader initiative from Mayor John Whitmire’s administration to end street homelessness in Houston by the end of 2026, a $70 million plan that debuted late 2024, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
At least 3,000 individuals were identified as experiencing homelessness in Harris County in 2025, about 37% of whom were unsheltered, according to an annual Point-in-Time survey from the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston/Harris County.
Additionally, nearly 60% of survey respondents said they had been homeless before, and almost 38% reported being homeless for more than three years, the report shows.
However, Houston’s unhoused population remains steady compared to national trends, which Community Impact previously reported is in part due to the city’s response strategies.
Some context
As Harris County’s local mental health authority, the Harris Center provides low-cost mental health services to tens of thousands of residents each year, regardless of ability to pay, per the center’s website.
Existing housing services offered through the center include the Hospital to Home rehabilitation program, short-term crisis residential unit and the Project for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness, or PATH.
The Harris Center submitted a grant proposal to the city in March 2025, which was reviewed June 16 in a joint meeting with the Quality of Life and Housing and Affordability committees, per city documents.
The grant will run through the rest of 2026, according to the documents.
