Butch Andreas walked along railroad tracks outside of Corning, a city of 10,000 people a dozen miles north of the Pennsylvania border, looking for warm coals from a recent bonfire.
He climbed into a thicket along deer trails, searching for litter. Near a bridge by a drainage canal, he left a backpack of supplies by a tent whose occupants didn’t reply to his overtures.
This is what outreach to homeless people looks like outside of New York’s biggest cities. And Andreas, a formerly homeless man who’s part of a state-backed program called SOS, has had to adopt new tactics as it’s expanded beyond the five boroughs.
“It's accepted to sleep on the street in New York City,” he said.
Things are different in the smaller cities and rural towns of New York’s Southern Tier — the region west of Binghamton along the Pennsylvania border. People stay out of sight.
“It makes my job harder because I have to find these people, and then I have to get them resources, which there aren't as many,” Andreas said.
Homelessness rose around the nation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. An influx of migrants exacerbated the spike in New York City and prompted officials there to erect tent shelters to care for tens of thousands of people. In counties on the Southern Tier, the homeless census increased from 240 in 2019 to 640 in 2025, according to annual surveys.
Gov. Kathy Hochul launched SOS street outreach teams in New York City in 2022, and expanded the program to the rest of the state the following year with slightly different criteria for who could be helped.
“Homelessness looks different in the rest of the state than in New York City,” said Dr. Carine Nzodom, medical director for homelessness and other complex populations at the state Office of Mental Health.
She said the SOS teams do what’s called “critical time intervention” that lasts for a period of six to nine months. Each team includes someone like Andreas who was once homeless, known as a “peer,” as well as a trained social worker.
They help connect individuals to permanent housing and then assess other needs — like care for chronic medical conditions or help finding jobs.
“I kind of take the analogy of, this is your life. You're driving the bus,” said Julie Overton, an SOS social worker. “Sometimes we're here to put gas in it. Sometimes we're here to change a tire. Sometimes we're just here to ride it with you. We take a soft approach and build rapport.”
Overton and Andreas are part of an SOS team that covers Steuben and Chemung counties. They do outreach work at least once a month — looking for tents or other signs of homeless people.
“Climbing through the weeds. Dealing with ticks. Going to places that people don't go,” explained Heather Harper, a care manager on the team, as the clouds started drizzling. “We're nowhere near a resource right now. We're the only ones. So if we're finding people out here, we're the connection.”
The overall SOS program costs about $39 million a year. There are 20 teams in New York City and 11 more covering the rest of the state. About a third of the people currently benefiting from the program come from outside the five boroughs, according to the state.
The program has helped place 1,826 people into permanent housing. Fifty-eight of them were helped by the Southern Tier team since it launched in 2024.
One of them is Mike Miller. The 49-year-old grew up outside of Elmira and struggled with drugs before landing in prison for a felony burglary conviction.
“When I went to prison, I had everything — I had a place to live, you know what I mean?” Miller said during an interview at a downtown library. “It was difficult to come home and go to a homeless shelter.”
Overton helped Miller apply for apartments and get mental health counseling. She nagged him about doctor’s appointments. He said he’s joined a church and is getting healthier. When he needed help from the SOS team, he said “they were right there.”
The next step is a job. He’s talking about becoming a peer to help other people.
