A little more than a decade ago, Monterey Police Department noticed a pattern.
Police officers, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula’s emergency department, and social service providers were all encountering the same people, time and time again.
And while they were all trying to help the same people — most of whom were unhoused — they were working in silos. And that lack of coordination kept people cycling through emergency systems without a clear way forward.
The solution came in 2015 with the creation of the Multi-Disciplinary Outreach Team, or MDOT.
MDOT pairs Monterey police officers with social workers from Montage Health, Interim, Inc., Monterey County Behavioral Health, and Adult Protective Services, adding the crucial missing pieces that law enforcement alone cannot provide. Instead of defaulting to citations, MDOT offers options.
The goal is to break the “catch and release” cycle by connecting people to the resources they need most to get off the streets, such as housing pathways, substance use treatment, healthcare, and mental health support.
Most people MDOT encounters lack basic necessities like identification, a phone, or a mailing address — gaps that stop progress before it starts. Brittany Camargo-Matadamas, a Montage Health social worker embedded with MDOT, helps fill those gaps.
She helps unhoused people obtain identification, apply for benefits, schedule medical and behavioral health appointments, access substance use treatment, and navigate shelter and housing systems that require persistence and paperwork.
“Every day is different,” Camargo-Matadamas says. “We help with literally anything you can think of. Shelter, transportation, medical follow-ups, addiction support. If it’s a barrier to getting off the streets, we try to remove it.”
Her presence also changes the tone of an encounter. In some situations, a police uniform can be a non-starter. When she joins officers in the field, people who might otherwise be reluctant to engage are often more willing to accept help.
An award-winning effort
MDOT’s efforts aren’t going unnoticed. On March 4, MDOT was honored with the Anda award at the city of Monterey’s annual awards breakfast. “Anda” is the city’s official motto, meaning “onward” in Spanish, and the award recognizes people and programs that embody the city’s spirit of forward progress.
MDOT earned the award by showing what progress looks like when systems stop working in silos and start working together, and that collaborative approach is making a real impact. In 2025, MDOT visited more than 400 locations where unhoused individuals were living, using each encounter as an opportunity to build trust and offer help. The team connected people to services during 57 of those visits, resulting in 19 people moving into permanent housing.
Help, though, is more often rejected than accepted. Services were declined 101 times, putting persistence and consistency at the center of MDOT’s work. For MDOT, every “no” is a step toward a future “yes.”
Turning crisis into continuity
That persistence changed the trajectory for one man who lived behind the Del Rey Oaks Safeway for years. He desperately needed mental health treatment but lacked the capacity to ask for help.
After months of consistent outreach, an MDOT social worker got him assessed and admitted to a program. Eventually, he secured housing. He remains housed today.
“Now he shops on his own, he even bought a laptop on his own, and he manages daily life independently,” Camargo-Matadamas says. “He's unrecognizable from the person he was just a year ago. It’s incredible to see.”
Another case involved a family living in an RV with two young boys. Officers had contacted them many times, but the parents would only show identification, refusing to speak further. They were afraid any interaction with police would lead to a Child Protective Services report.
Camargo-Matadamas met the mother alone at the library and explained the team’s goal was to connect them with resources, not take their children.
“That changed everything,” says Lieutenant Jake Pinkas, a Monterey police officer and MDOT member. “The family eventually moved into a shelter. I visited them recently, and they were smiling, talking, and telling me how happy their kids are and how well they’re doing in school.”
Stories like these reinforce the team’s approach.
“You can’t take the first no, or the tenth no, as the final answer,” Pinkas says. “Somebody might refuse services 20 times. But they might say yes that 21st time.”
More than outreach
MDOT’s work goes beyond crisis response. The team hosts Coffee with a Cop events, speaks to local high school students about DUI prevention, and shows up with lemonade on hot days and hot cocoa on cold ones. They help secure donations for school supplies and holiday gifts for families in need. Each effort reinforces the same principle: Trust must be built before it’s needed.
MDOT shows what “onward” looks like in practice: showing up again and again and turning moments of crisis into steady paths forward for the people who need it most.
