A Safety Net Within the Safety Net

Dade County Street Response (DCSR) exists as the safety net to the safety net—serving individuals who are often excluded from or unable to access even the most basic public and charitable services. While traditional safety net institutions like public hospitals, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), and social service agencies play critical roles, many of our patients fall through their cracks due to extreme poverty, lack of identification, immigration status, mental illness, housing instability, or trauma from past institutional harm.

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We serve people who are too undocumented to qualify for public benefits, too unhoused to receive mail or keep appointments, too medically complex to navigate fragmented systems, or too criminalized to feel safe calling 911. These are the people who show up at our clinic inside a shipping container, or who are met on the streets by our mobile crisis and street medicine teams. They aren’t just underinsured—they’re uninsurable. They aren’t just struggling—they’re systemically excluded.

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As such, DCSR functions as a low-barrier, front-door alternative—catching people who have been rejected or exhausted by conventional pathways. We do the work of patient navigation, documentation support, case management, and trust-building that larger systems often can’t or won’t prioritize. We stabilize people upstream, often preventing unnecessary ER visits, hospitalizations, arrests, or worsening psychiatric crises.

In short, DCSR fills the spaces between systems, linking people to care while also advocating to reshape the systems themselves. We’re not just another access point—we’re the last reliable stop for many before total abandonment. That is what it means to be the safety net within the safety net.