Pasadena firefighters, nurse help unhoused through street-based outreach team

Some of Pasadena's first responders are part of a specialized, street-based mobile unit that helps unhoused individuals in the city connect with housing, medical care, and mental health services.

The Pasadena Outreach Response Team, or PORT, is a little-known crew of firefighters and a nurse working to build trust and help people who may be experiencing homelessness.

Instead of walking the hospital halls, nurse Patty Nogueda is out on Pasadena's city streets. She carries a blood pressure machine to check blood sugar, and her first patient of the day is a man named Otto. He's someone she and Pasadena firefighter Chris Figueroa have seen before.

Firefighter Tony Zee is also part of the six-person PORT team that has moved through parks and encampments, responding to different needs over the last eight years.  The team has gotten nearly 100 people into housing since 2023, like Donald Dryer, who was formerly homeless.

"Tony Z came along, he seen me out there, I didn't have no sleeping bag or anything," Dryer said. He said he now has housing because of Zee.

"We saw a need here. But we want to take a gentle approach and try to help, instead of OK, we're going to put handcuffs on you, or we're going to do this and that – take you to court," Zee said.

Pasadena Public Health Director Manuel Carmona says the city needed a different kind of response.

"Since January 2023, the team has actually made 6,200 contacts with people in our community experiencing homelessness. Out of the 6,200, a little over 50% have actually had 911 calls diverted to the PORT team," Carmona said.

It's work that can be hard and sometimes dangerous. "There is a lot of mental health that comes at you, death threats, that kind of thing, but we don't take it personally," Zee said.

But for this team, the reward is in the people who start to trust them, and sometimes, finally, to get them off the street.

"These are our people. It's our community," Zee said.