In 2025, we celebrate 35 years of Breaking Ground. This month’s #BG35 highlight is our Street to Home outreach program. Back in 2003, Breaking Ground brought together a large coalition of organizations for an ambitious experiment - map homelessness in a one-square-mile area and send outreach workers to get to know people experiencing homelessness by name, build trust, document their needs and desires, and work diligently to help them secure housing. Over three years, the effort reduced unsheltered homelessness in West Midtown by 87%, and led to the robust outreach efforts that cover every corner of the city today. Though outreach has been enhanced by technology and advanced data collection in the intervening years, along with the addition of street medicine and psychiatry, the methods remain the same - meet people where they are, get to know them and their needs, and get them connected to housing solutions. Today, Breaking Ground outreach teams cover all of Brooklyn, Queens, and Midtown Manhattan. And through our innovative Connect to Care program we bring this same approach to outreach into privately managed spaces, including retail stores, cafes and hospitals. Together, Street to Home and Connect to Care touch the lives of thousands of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, and last year helped nearly 1,500 people find housing. (fb)

This year, the Breaking Ground Junior Board hosted Serving Up Home at the Prince George Ballroom. Thank you to the more than 300 guests and all of our amazing sponsors who contributed nearly $230,000 in support of our street outreach programs that help unsheltered New Yorkers come indoors to housing. (fb)