Services

What we do

The Office of Homeless Services works with more than 60 homeless housing and service providers, as well as city, state, and federal governments. Together, we make up Philadelphia’s homeless service system.

This system provides homelessness prevention and diversion aid, as well as emergency and temporary housing, to people who are experiencing homelessness and those at risk of homelessness.

Get help

If you need help paying rent

You can apply for financial assistance to help pay for overdue rent or a security deposit to move into a new home. To learn how:

Call the Homelessness Prevention InfoLine at (215) 686-7177 and follow the instructions; or
Visit a City-funded homeless intake center.

If you still need help applying, email the OHS Prevention, Diversion, and Intake Unit at OHSPrevention@phila.gov.

If you’re living outdoors

If you are or see someone living outdoors, call the City’s Homeless Street Outreach Hotline at (215) 232-1984. The Outreach team can help you find or get to a City-funded homeless intake center. Anyone who needs shelter can visit the centers.

For all other questions, email us at OHS@phila.gov.

Connect

Address	1401 John F. Kennedy Blvd. 10th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19102
Email	ohs@phila.gov
	Phone: (215) 686-7175 ask a question (215) 232-1984 help a person on the street
Social	Twitter

Posts

Staff member shown inside RDC intake center seated at a computer, visible through a big glass window marked "Prevention, Diversion & Intake"

Post

OHS Shelter Services Will Be Available During Eagles Parade

February 13, 2025

Philadelphia's LOVE sculpture in Winter, with the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the background

Post

What Happens During a Code Blue and How to Get Help

January 7, 2025

Post

A Chat with New OHS Executive Director, Cheryl Hill

December 20, 2024

See all posts

Events

Aug

15

Event

Kensington Service Connections/Site Clean-ups

All Day

Multiple Kensington locations
Event

Kensington Service Connections/Site Clean-ups

August 15, 2025
All Day

Multiple Kensington locations
map
Service Connection/Site Clean-ups will occur today at these Kensington locations:
- Reach Street and Allegheny Avenue
- 800-811 E. Allegheny Avenue
- 3066-3072 Kensington Avenue
- 1800 E. Clearfield Street
- 1800 E. Orleans Street
- 2957 Kensington Avenue
- 1800-1813 E. Hart Lane (both sides)
- 1800 E. Somerset Street (both sides)
- 400 E. Somerset Street
- 2814-2824 Kensington Avenue
- 3066-3072 Kensington Avenue
- 2000 E. Sterner Street
- 2774 Ruth Street
- 2000 E. Silver Street
- 2600 Kensington Avenue (Across from Huntingdon El stop, building 1801)
- 2558 Kensington Avenue
About Service Connection/Site Clean-up Days
Office of Homeless Services Encampment Resolution Team (ERT) staff members join the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services’s (DBHIDS) Homeless Street Outreach Team (Outreach) and the City’s Sanitation Department to conduct *Service Connection/Site Clean-up Days. OHS’s ERT staff schedules and leads service connection clean-ups at various selected outdoor encampment locations in Philadelphia.
How it Works
The teams post signs in advance to alert people living in tents, RVs, makeshift shelters, or none at all, on sidewalks, under bridges, in parks, empty fields, lots, etc., of upcoming service days. Each service day, the teams visit the encampment sites to offer individuals services, such as rides to a City intake center where staff can help find shelter space, Stranded Traveler Assistance, behavioral health, drug or medical treatment, and other similar services. The Sanitation Department team further assists by cleaning up accumulated trash.
* Service days are not the same as formal, encampment resolutions, which, while social services-led, involve many more City of Philadelphia departments and nonprofit partners and follow specific protocols regarding personal property storage, notification, and other requirements.