Official caseworkers and 211 staff send families to one advocate

For about a year, Austin Davis’s phone has been flooded with hundreds of pleas for help from across the Phoenix metropolitan area, ProPublica reported on October 7. The contacts include a school employee who wanted to help a homeless family but could not find space at a shelter and asked whether Davis could pay for a hotel room; a mother of five living in a storage unit who was told by a homeless services organization to call Davis; and a mother panhandling with her six children who said passersby gave her Davis’s number, telling her he might be able to provide shelter.

“I feel like the worst mother in the world,” she texted him, according to messages reviewed by ProPublica.

Davis runs a small nonprofit called AZ Hugs and is known for working outside the official system. With the help of volunteers, he hosts a nightly meal for homeless people at Moeur Park in Tempe, a site known locally as “The Hill.” In January, the reporter began visiting the park to meet the families Davis was assisting, and described the scene of desperate parents — some of whom had recently been evicted, lost a job or fled domestic violence — surrounding Davis to tell him about their situation. As he listened, he played with their children, always with an energy drink in hand.

The scene was both heartening and disconcerting, the reporter wrote. Davis was helping families stay off the street. But in a county of nearly 5 million people, government agencies and multimillion-dollar nonprofits — some tasked with helping the very same homeless families — were sending people to a man in a park.

The nightly meals have drawn the ire of Tempe officials and led to 35 citations against him for trespassing and holding picnics without permits. In 2024, he reached a deal to plead guilty to one permit violation, and the city dismissed the other citations, according to court documents reviewed by ProPublica. He has spent three nights in jail. In 2025, Davis and two other advocates for homeless people filed a lawsuit against Tempe, alleging it had violated their free speech protections by citing them for feeding people in parks. The city revised its permit ordinance, and Davis withdrew the lawsuit.

Nearly every person who has reached out to Davis said they had first called 211, the official channel for shelter referrals, and learned it could be months before they would receive a placement. Workers from 211 and the Family Housing Hub — the county’s coordinated entry point for family shelter — have also directed people to Davis, according to the report.

In recent months, Davis has tried to draw attention to what he calls the “family homelessness crisis,” raising money on social media to pay for hotel rooms for families, many with young children, who would otherwise sleep on the street or in their cars. Davis told ProPublica he cannot assist everyone who asks for help. He said a much bigger effort is needed, involving nonprofits and local and state officials, but he sees little evidence that it is happening.

Scale of family homelessness

The number of people in homeless families in Maricopa County reached 2,103 this year, the highest level since 2015, according to the latest figures compiled locally and reported to the federal government, ProPublica reported. In late September, nearly 200 families were on the county shelter waitlist.

ProPublica noted that the count is considered an undercount because the tally is taken on a single night by volunteers who can miss people who are trying to stay out of sight. The 200-family waitlist figure does not include families who could not get on the list, were removed because they were not considered homeless, or called 211, found it unhelpful, and never called back.

Solari, a nonprofit that runs the statewide 211 line, told ProPublica that the Family Housing Hub, which is run by UMOM, a nonprofit, sets the eligibility criteria for placement on the shelter waitlist. ProPublica found that calling and visiting the official channel to address family homelessness rarely leads to offers of help, leaving families feeling hopeless.

Candice Ortiz told ProPublica she had tried since spring to find stable shelter and housing. As the months dragged on, she noticed the toll on her 8-year-old son. He was hospitalized for heat exhaustion after spending the day outside, and she worried about the school he had missed, ProPublica reported.

Davis helped Ortiz as she hit dead ends in her search for a place to stay, according to text messages reviewed by ProPublica. Ortiz said she had called 211 over and over, answering the same questions about her living situation, only to receive information she could have found through a simple internet search. She said a worker with the Family Housing Hub told her that since she and her children were sleeping in her car, she was not actually homeless. Another told her the waitlist was full.

In June, Ortiz said, she spent the day at a Phoenix cooling center to escape the heat. A representative told her to go to UMOM, which runs an emergency shelter for families. She said she used her last $20 on a rideshare to the shelter. They took her information again and told her she was not “in the system.” Nothing was available. UMOM told ProPublica that to protect the privacy of clients, it does not comment on individual families.

At the end of August, she connected with the Phoenix Rescue Mission, a nonprofit that offers programs for homeless people. The group sent Ortiz to a local apartment complex where she viewed an apartment. Later, a worker with the Phoenix Rescue Mission told her it had run out of funding to pay for it, according to text messages reviewed by ProPublica. The Phoenix Rescue Mission did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.

Summer capacity and the heat

UMOM, which during the last fiscal year received more than $7 million in government grants, set aside 23 units of shelter and about a dozen tents for families this summer as temperatures reached 117 degrees, ProPublica reported. The program, part of the city of Phoenix’s heat relief effort, has helped nearly 300 households so far but is winding down this month.

ProPublica spoke to more than 30 families searching for shelter. Parents told the outlet they worried about how their situation was affecting their children. Research cited by ProPublica shows that homelessness harms children, disrupting brain development and growth and leading to permanent changes in the brain and body.

Petition to the governor and the official response

In early April, Davis launched an online petition calling on Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, to declare a state of emergency to address family homelessness. The petition has more than 5,000 signatures, ProPublica reported.

In June, a volunteer with Davis’s organization attended a fundraiser for Hobbs, who is running for reelection, to hand her a letter about the petition. The letter suggested such a declaration could unlock funding for emergency shelter and recommended making it easier to access the Family Housing Hub.

“I implore you to consider the children who endure extreme heat without safe shelter,” the letter stated. “No parent should be told to wait months for assistance while temperatures reach life-threatening levels.”

Davis told ProPublica he has not heard from the governor’s office or from other nonprofit leaders about joining his effort — only from caseworkers hoping he might help them find shelter for families. He said he wished that other organizations would at least acknowledge the problem and called their silence “frustrating” and a “disservice” to those in crisis.

The governor’s press secretary, Liliana Soto, told ProPublica that emergency declarations are reserved for natural disasters, and using one to address homelessness might not be appropriate. Soto added that the governor is “deeply aware” of these challenges. Since taking office in 2023, Hobbs has allocated at least $245 million statewide on efforts such as eviction prevention, affordable housing, emergency shelter, and rapidly rehousing people experiencing housing insecurity.

“The governor believes no family, especially families with infants or young children, should be left without a safe place to go during the summer heat,” Soto said in a statement.

Church shelter and the 2 a.m. fundraising

Most nights, Davis pleads for money on social media to put families in hotel rooms — some nights raising thousands of dollars and posting updates at 2 a.m., ProPublica reported. In September, Davis’s organization started hosting an overnight shelter at the First United Methodist Church of Mesa, with space for at least six families. Davis said he knows it is a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem.

On a recent evening at the church, families arrived in vehicles packed with their belongings, ProPublica reported. Inside a large air-conditioned room, a volunteer had set up canopy tents with cots, pillows, and blankets and offered a dinner of chicken penne pasta. A mother and her two children showered, then got in their tent and zipped it up. Gradually, others, some with toddlers, settled in, and the room became quiet. They needed to be gone by 6 a.m.