West Coast cities seek fixes for growing homeless crisis

NEW YORK (AP) — It's before dawn when two outreach workers find a homeless man known as Juice near a train station in Harlem. A nurse will be visiting to discuss his heart problems, they tell him.

A short time later, in Marcus Garvey Park, the sun has just begun to rise when the caseworkers approach a man zipped inside a sleeping bag. They have encountered him before; they know he's teasing when he gives a phony name.

Gladys Rivera and Ali Olson are part of a citywide, round-the-clock army of workers for nonprofits contracted by the city. Their aim is to get the homeless into shelter, and so they make the rounds of upper Manhattan, checking on clients, identifying newcomers to the streets and trying to connect them with services.