Welcome to The Newsfeed.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Last week, we took a look at the public health side of drug treatment by going inside one of Evergreen Treatment Services clinics in South King County.

Now, we want to take you to the streets of Seattle to get a better understanding of what happens before treatment.

Multimedia journalist Jaelynn Grisso caught up with caseworkers from the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Team, or LEAD, to show us their work firsthand.

-Hi guys.

We're from REACH.

I have a couple snacks.

-Social workers Liz Woodruff and Clentonia Vann work for REACH, an organization with LEAD, the public safety program designed to address chronic crime by bringing various parties together.

That includes police, business owners, the City of Seattle, King County Council and case managers.

-What LEAD really is is a framework to bring all of those people together, and to have conversations that they wouldn't otherwise have, that allows them to have a whole complete, a more complete picture about what somebody's impact on the community is like.

-For case managers like Woodruff and Vann, much of the work means going out to connect with folks in spots where many unhoused people are.

Like where they took me downtown in an area commonly known as The Blade.

They help connect them to resources and provide some essential supplies like food and clothes.

-It's not very busy here today.

Do you want to go to McDonald's, maybe?

-Yeah, I was just going to do a block.

-Now we have a lot of folks that have moved out of downtown and kind of are spending time in Chinatown International District, 12th and Jackson.

So that's another hotspot.

-This is the result of dispersing people north and south.

A lot of work has been done to, we don't want to say push them out, but, that's what it is.

-Because the people REACH works with are often unhoused locating clients can be challenging.

-Keeping track of folks is the hardest part of our job.

Because folks are so transient or because we have sweeps and folks have to move along.

We really lose track easily.

And then all the work and the progress that we have made we're kind of starting back at zero.

-Two years ago, Seattle passed an ordinance criminalizing public drug use as a misdemeanor.

A recent report from King County Department of Public Defense revealed that it led to more than 200 folks prosecuted for drug crimes.

But for Woodruff and Vann, the ordinance has meant getting many more folks on LEADs radar.

-This is the first time somebody maybe had been exposed to case management versus jail, right.

To get that diversion for this low level crime.

And at that way, we're able to help them with other services or other needs that they may have never attempted to address or didn't know how to address.

-Data from LEAD reveals that law enforcement referrals increased from the two years before the ordinance, compared to the two years since.

Woodruff said they expect referrals to increase next year as well.

But for those doing this work, success is not just in the quantity but in the quality of care for both clients and the community.

-In those areas where you have, you know, people where there's a high degree of of human suffering, I mean, let's just call it, what it is.

People are... because they have they're struggling with extreme poverty because they have behavioral health needs that aren't being met and because they, you know, use substances in ways that aren't, aren't useful for them.

When people walk out their front door, they can see that.

So the goal for LEAD, when LEAD is at scale, and is is funded to the degree that it needs to be, is you walk out your front door and you don't see that same degree of human suffering.

-Jaelynn Grisso, Cascade PBS.

-I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed, your destination for nonprofit Northwest news.

Go to CascadePBS.org for more.