By Alex Bass
Alex.bass@triangletribune.com
RALEIGH – It didn’t cost a penny for the Raleigh Police Department’s ACORNS team to be on the money. ACORNS (Addressing Crises through Outreach, Referrals, Networking, and Service) held its third annual outreach event last month in downtown Raleigh. RPD personnel were joined by dozens of nonprofits, most of whom set up underneath popup tents in a parking lot near the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
ACORNS was established in the summer of 2022 to realize the nexus of law enforcement encounters often superseded by prevailing life needs (i.e., employment, food, health care, shelter, etc.). Team members form two-person partnerships of a sworn officer and a civilian social worker to respond to legally-induced referrals by discerning and meeting individuals where they are.
“We’re almost like a live-time gap analysis,” senior officer Maddi Horner said. “We can’t just hand them to one group. We connect them with multiple groups and ensure everyone is working together and knows what is going on.”
ACORNS, a member of the Wake County Continuum of Care, partners with fellow members Alliance Mental Health and Oak City Cares, for example, if some specific services are needed immediately. In the larger picture, the Continuum’s work offers opportunities for ACORNS to expand its network with law enforcement and other community organizations.
The Wake Local Reentry Council was a first-time outreach event participant this year. “Not only have I met people who can use our services but also people who have services that we can refer people to,” Wake LRC Program Manager James Johnson said. “When people see all the help that is out here, it gives them hope. Then, that gives them the energy to ask for help.”
Johnson spent time collaborating with law enforcement officials looking to place previously incarcerated individuals in career opportunities, and speaking with Wake Technical Community College barbering program instructor William Graham, a multiyear outreach event participant.
Graham has been with the barbering program since its inception nine years ago. He and students provided free haircuts in a makeshift outdoor barber shop. Graham is grateful for these opportunities in which students see how their profession is a simple and powerful community service for anyone looking to make a life change.
“We don’t know what people are dealing with on a daily basis,” Graham said. “This is their one moment or chance to relax, let it go, maybe change their day and put a smile on their face.”
Then, again, making it to the outreach event is a reason for many individuals to smile. ACORNS team members smile, too, in thanksgiving for the chance to come to citizens.
“Because they’re unsheltered, they don’t have the transportation to go from place to place,” ACORNS social worker Chase Sapp said. “If they tell me they haven’t gotten services, then I ask what their barriers were.”
So often, prevailing barriers are having identification documents, which are all the more challenging to secure when someone has relocated from out of state or the country. They might need three forms of identification for certain services and have just one or two.
A homeless individual might have documents damaged or destroyed by water during inclement weather. “Nobody that we’ve come across has funding for vital documents or incidentals,” Horner said.
Sapp has a standard first step for developing a services action plan when she receives a referral. “I make sure they have all their essential documents before I do anything,” she said.
For the ACORNS team, helping individuals navigate and pay for documents is a quantifiable act but, ultimately, just the start of a relationship.
“They’re telling you how they got to the worst place in their lives,” Horner said. “You’re working with them and holding their hand as they try to steer in a new direction. The community is still here to help you and journey with you as you go to your next better place.”
