KEY IDEAS:
- The Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams (HEART) use Peregrine to help connect unhoused individuals with emergency housing, behavioral health services, and social support resources.
- Peregrine integrates Hayward PD’s CAD, RMS, and historical public safety data on one searchable platform, empowering HEART personnel to rapidly locate unhoused clients who have become eligible for time-sensitive housing opportunities.
- HEART also uses AI-generated summaries and cross-jurisdictional data in Peregrine to build CARE Act petitions for clients with severe untreated mental illnesses.
- By providing mobile access to integrated public safety data, Peregrine improves situational awareness for outreach workers and helps them assess risk before engaging with clients in the field.
“For our repeat offenders, and especially transient folks, I’d like to get them plugged into a social service system and unplugged from the criminal justice system. I know it’s just a dream. A lot of these folks don’t accept services. But a lot of them do. And the ones who do accept services, sometimes we can plug them in, and then we don’t see them again. And that’s good.”
—Jaime Dadej, Service Coordinator, Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams
When you get off the waitlist for emergency housing in Alameda County, the countdown starts: You usually have 72 hours before the county will release the bed to the next person on the list.
But if you’re unhoused, you may not have a reliable phone number or address — so what happens if the county can’t locate or contact you before your 72 hours are up?
And even if the county does have your contact information, what happens if you haven’t yet submitted all the documents required for emergency shelter, including a government-issued ID, a Social Security card, and proof of income?
“If they aren’t document-ready, they’ll get passed up for housing,” said Jaime Dadej, a service coordinator at Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams (HEART). “Their name won’t even come up on the list if they don’t have certain documents on file.”
It’s HEART’s mission to keep that from happening — and Peregrine is part of their method.
💡 HOW DOES THE HEART PROGRAM USE PEREGRINE?
In this article, you’ll learn how Peregrine helps HEART:
- Locate unhoused individuals to inform them of time-sensitive emergency housing opportunities
- Determine whether clients have the documents they need (e.g., a state ID) to receive services from the county
- Compile petitions for clients to receive mental health treatment through the CARE Act and other programs
- Learn if a call involves a subject with a history of violence so they can request a police officer to co-respond with them for safety
- Stay aware and informed if their clients are arrested
What is the HEART program in Hayward?
Housed within the Hayward Police Department, HEART is a co-responder program comprising two teams:
- The Hayward Mobile Evaluation Team (HMET) responds to mental health crisis calls with a co-responding behavioral health clinician and specially trained police officer.
- The Mental Health and Case Management Linkages Team (LINK) connects vulnerable Hayward residents experiencing behavioral health crises, substance use disorders, and homelessness with social service support resources, such as emergency housing.
How fragmented public safety data affects homeless outreach and crisis response
Because HEART is part of Hayward PD, HEART personnel are authorized to access certain police data, including:
- Call narratives
- Arrest records
- Emergency detention records
This information helps HEART provide safe, effective services to unhoused community members and individuals in crisis. However, the data is scattered across disparate source systems that don’t talk to each other.
How Peregrine integrates CAD, RMS, and behavioral health data
“Peregrine can help me find these folks so that they don’t miss their open bed or open housing voucher. I use Peregrine in the field all the time. I use it every day.” —Jaime Dadej, Service Coordinator, Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams
To break down those data silos, HEART personnel turn to Peregrine, which integrates data from Hayward PD’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, records management system (RMS), and other current and legacy sources, all on one platform.
Peregrine also merges redundant records across sources, automates data visualizations, and instantly generates comprehensive person profiles to streamline research and analytics.
🔒 HOW DOES PEREGRINE PROTECT SENSITIVE DATA?
Outreach and crisis response teams like HEART often work with highly regulated criminal justice and health data. Peregrine adds a layer of protection for this information by:
- Enforcing policy-driven protections across its platform, with CJIS, HIPAA, and other relevant compliance requirements built into the foundation
- Defaulting to least-privilege access principles, allowing administrators to set granular role- and attribute-based access permissions for their agencies’ data
- Enabling administrators to monitor their teams’ data usage in real time and review comprehensive activity logs to investigate any unusual behavior
To learn more about how Peregrine protects individuals’ privacy by securing sensitive data through its entire lifecycle, check out Trust at Peregrine.
How HEART connects vulnerable individuals with services
Dadej, who works with LINK, collaborates with the county and other shelter providers to connect Hayward community members with services quickly, safely, and effectively. Here’s how.
When a service provider or case manager needs to quickly locate an unhoused client in Hayward, they call LINK. For example:
- A housing provider may need to find an unhoused individual in Hayward to connect them to a shelter or permanent housing once they’ve gotten off the waitlist.
- A case manager may have lost contact with their client, and they suspect the client is in Hayward.
When a housing provider or case manager calls LINK to request their help, Dadej and her colleagues:
- Locate the individual
- Make contact with them
- Transport them to the shelter
Peregrine helps make their job possible.
“Peregrine can help me find these folks so that they don’t miss their open bed or open housing voucher,” Dadej said. “I use Peregrine in the field all the time. I use it every day.”
How outreach teams locate unhoused individuals using integrated data
“If I can’t get into the CAD platform, I can’t see anything. Peregrine’s mobile app has changed that completely.” —Jaime Dadej, Service Coordinator, Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams
To locate transient clients, HEART personnel can search a client’s name in Peregrine and instantly review associated CAD incidents, addresses, and people to get an idea of where that client might be located.
While much of that information is also available in Hayward PD’s CAD system, HEART staff have limited access to the CAD platform, especially while they’re out in the field.
“It’s not mobile on my phone,” Dadej said. “And even if I’m sitting at a desktop, not all desktops in our department have the right systems. So if I can’t get into the CAD platform, I can’t see anything. Peregrine’s mobile app has changed that completely.”
Identifying clients in the field
Dadej added that she sometimes has to find clients she hasn’t met before, so she doesn’t know what they look like. In those cases, she turns to Peregrine, which pulls in any photos available from Hayward PD’s integrated sources.
“I’ll have no idea what this person looks like, so I’ll look in Peregrine, and I’ll see their picture, which is really helpful,” she said. “I don’t have access to the same databases the police use to see photos, so I use the Peregrine photos a lot.”
Helping clients reconnect with family members
When Dadej looks up a client in Peregrine, the platform highlights other individuals who may be associated with the client — including family members. Dadej said she’s used this Peregrine feature to reunite clients with their estranged relatives.
“I can look them up, I can see their past reports, I can see if there are any family members or addresses listed that are in Hayward, and we can start there to see if we can help rebuild some relationships,” she said. “It’s an easy interface. That’s the biggest thing for me. It’s very user-friendly, so I have an easy time navigating it.”
💡 WHO BENEFITS FROM USING INTEGRATED CRISIS RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY?
Data integration platforms like Peregrine enable crisis response teams to work from a common operating picture by unifying their data and streamlining collaboration. Teams that can benefit from this technology include:
- Co-responder teams
- Behavioral health units
- Homeless outreach teams
- Crisis intervention teams
- Real-time information centers (RTICs) and dispatch centers
Readying clients for emergency housing to divert arrests
HEART personnel use CAD and RMS data in Peregrine to analyze arrest patterns, which inform outreach and intervention strategies.
How outreach teams prepare unhoused individuals for emergency housing
To qualify for emergency housing in Alameda County, candidates need certain documents on file in the county’s homeless management information system (HMIS), such as:
- Government-issued identification
- Social Security card
- Proof of income
- Proof of disability
Even if an unhoused person has been on the waitlist for emergency housing, they will be passed up if they aren’t “document-ready” by the time their turn comes.
Proactive outreach strategies
Dadej uses Peregrine to identify unhoused individuals who have been getting arrested or calling 911 repeatedly.
“I’m able to see people who get arrested time and time again, what they’re arrested for, and where they get arrested, and that helps us determine where we need to do more outreach,” she said.
After identifying a potential shelter candidate with repeat arrests, Dadej cross-checks the county’s HMIS to see if that individual is document-ready. If not, she can plan proactive outreach to help the client gather and submit any missing documentation — all in hopes of deterring future arrests.
“If I see that someone keeps getting arrested in the same area, I can have providers go there and offer to do coordinated entry assessments and bring services to them to hopefully divert arrests in the future,” Dadej said. “When folks’ unmet needs finally get addressed, they may be less likely to end up in the circumstances that keep leading to arrest.”
📖 GLOSSARY OF TERMS
- CARE Act: A California civil court process that empowers family members, first responders, and mental health professionals to petition for court-ordered, community-based treatment and housing for individuals suffering from severe, untreated psychotic disorders
- Document-ready: Indicates that an individual has submitted the required documentation for housing services, such as identification, proof of income, and Social Security information
- Co-response: A crisis response model that pairs police officers with behavioral health professionals to jointly respond to 911 calls involving mental health crises, substance use, or homelessness
- CAD system: Computer-aided dispatch, or the central software system used to process 911 calls and track emergency incidents in real time
- RMS: Records management system, or the digital database police use to store, track, and manage incident reports, arrest records, citations, and other data
Securing behavioral health treatment for clients through the CARE Act
The CARE Act establishes a civil court process for providing treatment and services to individuals with severe, untreated mental health disorders in California. To qualify for treatment through the CARE Act, clients must meet the following criteria:
- Diagnosed with schizophrenia or a psychotic disorder that is not drug- or alcohol-related
- Significantly impaired by their mental illness and unable to live safely without treatment
- Not currently receiving adequate treatment for their mental illness
How Peregrine helps HEART build strong CARE Act petitions
HEART’s service coordinators build and file petitions on behalf of clients who may qualify for treatment through the CARE Act. To do so, coordinators need access to clients’ historical data, such as:
- Prior calls for service
- Arrests
- Involuntary psychiatric holds
Dadej said she uses Peregrine to find all of that information in one place, often in a concise AI-generated summary.
“I can look up the person in Peregrine and get this AI summary that says the person has a pattern of violating restraining orders, and in 2025 they violated restraining orders 160 times,” Dadej said. “I can put that word-for-word in the CARE Act petition, and I don’t have to look up each call for service individually.”
Cross-jurisdictional partnerships in Peregrine
Because Hayward PD collaborates with neighboring jurisdictions in Peregrine, HEART personnel can also use information from other agencies’ databases to reduce duplicative efforts and make clients’ petitions even more compelling.
“I can get information from Peregrine for their jurisdiction and our jurisdiction, which makes the petition stronger,” Dadej said. “If a person violated restraining orders 40 times in Hayward, but then another 60 times in the sheriff’s jurisdiction, putting those numbers together shows a much greater need.”
READ MORE → How the Concord Police Department Reduced Involuntary Psychiatric Holds by 27% Through Co-Response
How integrated data improves outreach worker safety and situational awareness
“My partner and I are unarmed, and we’re both women, so we use Peregrine for our own safety. It feels like an extra layer of protection.” —Jaime Dadej, Service Coordinator, Hayward Evaluation and Response Teams
Before HEART personnel go out to meet a client, they can use Peregrine to determine the risk associated with that client and whether they might need a police officer to co-respond with them for safety.
Dadej shared a recent example: Hayward PD officers made contact with an unhoused individual who expressed interest in services. The officers called HEART to ask about reserving a shelter bed for that individual and providing them with transport to the shelter.
“I used Peregrine to look at this person’s history to see, is this someone who’s safe for us to transport on our own?” Dadej said. “Should we have an officer with us, or should we have an officer do the transport? My partner and I are unarmed, and we’re both women, so we use Peregrine for our own safety. It feels like an extra layer of protection.”
Dadej said she uses Peregrine’s AI-generated person summaries to quickly review clients’ histories and determine whether police assistance might be necessary.
“We look at clients’ transportation requests on a case-by-case basis and can use Peregrine to see if they have a history of violence or other known safety concerns,” Dadej said. “If so, additional staff or police officers can assist with the transportation to make sure everyone stays safe.”
Improve crisis response and housing outreach with integrated data
Programs like HEART demonstrate how integrated public safety and social services data can improve outcomes for vulnerable community members. By giving outreach workers faster access to critical information, Peregrine helps teams:
- Coordinate housing placements
- Plan behavioral health interventions
- Strengthen CARE Act petitions
- Improve responder safety in the field
“For our repeat offenders, and especially transient folks, I’d like to get them plugged into a social service system and unplugged from the criminal justice system,” Dadej said. “I know it’s just a dream. A lot of these folks don’t accept services. But a lot of them do. And the ones who do accept services, sometimes we can plug them in, and then we don’t see them again. And that’s good.”
For agencies building co-response, homeless outreach, or behavioral health response programs, timely access to unified data can help reduce missed opportunities for care while improving operational efficiency across departments and jurisdictions. To learn more about how Peregrine can improve your community’s co-responder program, contact our team.
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