Throughout his time as our city’s lead executive 2016-2024, then-Mayor Turner was a committed partner to CFTH and The Way Home and an advocate for an effective and compassionate response to homelessness. 

In 2017, following Hurricane Harvey, Turner put out a call to area property managers to identify available units so that people made homeless by the storm could move out of disaster recovery shelters. This initiative, which became known as “Housing for Harvey,” helped to secure more than 700 units even in a tight rental market.  

During the pandemic, Turner and his administration were instrumental in the creation of the Community COVID Housing Program (CCHP), an unprecedented collaboration between the City, Harris County, and private philanthropy that sought to significantly expand the capacity of the homeless response system as a public health measure. In 2020, Turner led the City to dedicate $29 million in federal pandemic funding toward phase 1 of the program, and in 2022, the City made an additional investment in phase 2. Ultimately, more than 18,000 people experiencing homelessness, or at eminent risk, were housed or diverted from homelessness through the CCHP.