On any given night, thousands of people are experiencing homelessness across our state, with research showing being unhoused is closely linked to a person's decline in physical and mental health.

Now more communities are leaning into the role of the public health system as a means of prevention.

In Plainfield, Advocate, it's recently brought together leaders in behavioral and mental health care, religious and educational organizations to work together on finding solutions.

Melissa Rose Cooper was there.

There are lots of services out here, but who can find them?

Who are the navigators?

Who are those people who can build these tunnels and structures to get people to link people, to connect people to competent services on a consistent basis, not as a concession, but as an investment?

Questions Lynnette Shared says everyone should be able to answer.

Sharon is the director of New Jersey's Mental Health Players, a program under the Mental Health Association in New Jersey that uses arts and improv as a form of advocacy to raise awareness about mental illness, addiction and other life challenges, which she says can be difficult to talk about.

Because maybe you never considered.

Maybe that's where sick people know this is intended to be proactive.

So why not seek services proactively rather than reactively?

So that is our focus to help all of us to connect to break the stigma, to seek help at the beginning, to get things in place just in case, if not for you, but for your family members.

Because you all are so important to the community.

It's important for all of us to stay well in this.

Fight, a fight many taking part in during this roundtable session, discussing the best ways to give residents access to critical services.

Advocates say it can't be done alone.

It gives me a chance to provide these resources locally to our residents and police in the community and utilize those to as resources for us to educate the whole child within the school district as opposed to just a surface level on what people think that we're supposed to be doing in the schools when it comes to math, reading and writing and science.

It goes much deeper than that because you guys spoke about mental health.

You speak about challenges in the community, and we have to think about all of that because of all of that.

And we're dealing with our baby.

The event was hosted by the Housing Authority of Plainfield and Crescent Avenue Presbyterian Church, as well as the Joann Hollis Gardens Community Resource Center.

Community advocates say mental health can affect anyone and lead to other challenges, including homelessness and criminal activity.

Gina Ayo Some of the Union prosecutors office says it's important law enforcement is able to look at the entire picture and utilize diversion programs when appropriate.

CPI, which is pretrial intervention, mental health division, job version program, where we divert people either pre-arrest or post-arrest that community forum and we know we're there to make an arrest or because they committed a crime, but that we also know they have a mental health crisis or challenges in town that has a direct relationship to how they came to commit that crime.

Necessary resources, Eielson believes, can be effective in achieving true justice.

And yes, they may be in this moment criminal, they may be in this moment defendants.

But if we simply put them into prison and let them walk out and we don't intervene in any way at this moment when they seek our help, we will just continue that cycle of criminal criminality and opportunity.

But if we stop and use recovery court as a resource to give them help and to change the trajectory they're on, we can stop that pattern.

Community advocates say discussions like these are a healthy way to seeking solutions so residents can get the help they need without fear.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Melissa Rose Cooper.

Support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.