Traffic was brisk along East Houston street when WestCare Foundation staffers Rosie Baca and Rita Bethany set out on one of their three weekly visits to East Side residents, bearing news of help available in the area.

Clipboards in hand, they went door-to-door in the Jefferson Heights neighborhood, where renovated homes share blocks with older dwellings. They placed pamphlets at doors without an answer. Barking dogs tugged leashes and lunged at them. They left flyers rolled into the diamond-shaped spaces of chain link fences. And unseen residents spoke to them through slightly opened windows and closed doors.

 

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