On December 4th, 2015 HUD released its Final Rule on Defining “Chronically Homeless.” This rule provides new guidance on what signifies an occurrence of homelessness, and presents new challenges for CoCs that are seeking to understand the scale of chronic homelessness in their community. During this round table discussion, attendees will receive a brief overview of the new definition and of the resources out from HUD to support the implementation of this rule. The majority of this session will be an interactive discussion with audience members to understand what challenges and successes they have encountered so far in the implementation of the new rule, including lessons learned from the 2016 Point-in-Time Count.

In January 2016, both the City and the County of Los Angeles adopted comprehensive, coordinated strategic plans for addressing and ending homelessness in the region. City and County leaders will discuss the creation those plans and how technology and data with be leveraged their implementations.

Phil Ansell, Director of the LA County Homeless Initiative
Alisa Orduña, Director of Homelessness Policy, Office of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti

Community Rebuilders is a nonprofit housing agency providing strengths-based, housing first services in Kent County, Michigan. Our programs have been recognized by HUD and NAEH as national best practice models. In 2007 Community Rebuilders was the first provider in Kent County to create a rapid rehousing program, through this creation, the Housing First strengths-based model was developed. The HMIS strength-based housing plans are individualized housing plans focused on three main goals; obtaining and maintaining housing, increasing income and increasing self sufficiency. Plans are based on consumers needs, strengths, resources, wants and aspirations. This plan creates one electronic file that serves a consumer from initial program eligibility to graduated disengagement. The purpose of this session is to impress upon providers, funders, HMIS vendors and elected officials the value added in utilizing a strength-based case management model incorporated into your HMIS system.

Anna Diaz, Community Rebuilders
Jeffrey King, Community Rebuilders

The management of data in local communities has been under pressure due to HUD policy following the implementation of the HEARTH Act. Communities have struggled to implement a more inclusive and comprehensive set data management policies that accommodate the data sharing, the coordinated entry system and system performance measures. This session will detail the data management plan, policy, and implementation process in Pima County, Arizona over the last few years.

Chris Pitcher, ICF International
Pam Moseley, Pima County Community Services

HIPAA, FERPA, VAWA, 42 CFR Part II–HMIS and Human Services data professionals must navigate an easily confusing alphabet soup of privacy regulations as they develop policies and procedures, facilitate collaboration and sharing, and expand the collection and use of client data in service delivery. HomeBase, a San Francisco based public policy law firm, will guide participants through the basic regulatory framework governing HMIS and related human services type client data including the basic elements of privacy regulations covering health care, substance abuse treatment, domestic violence, and school records. We’ll discuss common privacy pitfalls and misconceptions and provide practical advice, strategies and resources to overcome them.

Jeff Ugai, HomeBase
Eli Hamilton, HomeBase

This session examines the creation and implementation of the by-name, housing-focused prioritization list and reports created by the WV Coalition to End Homelessness, and how the reports act as the cornerstone of the CoC’s Coordinated Access efforts. The process developed prioritizes what housing intervention is best suited for a Client based off their acuity score as determined by the Vulnerability Index Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT). Community stakeholders are able to determine which members of their unhoused population have the most immediate need for housing. The list is accessible at any time and is especially helpful for use in community based Housing prioritization meetings. Numerous modifications have been made to the list since it was first implemented, making it a more dynamic tool for housing prioritization. It is the hope of the proposed presenters of this session that attendees will gain knowledge of both WVCEH’s hits and misses as they have benefited through this process, and how the use of data has been integral.

Matthew Hedrick, WV Coalition to End Homelessness, Inc.
Rachael Coen, WV Coalition to End Homelessness, Inc.

Connecticut became the first state to end chronic veteran homelessness. CT’s successful campaign to functionally end veteran homelessness contained elements familiar to communities around the country – increased communication between providers, coordination of outreach efforts, better targeting and leveraging of existing housing resources. But it ultimately turned on developing a highly precise and quantitative definition of our goal, and, more importantly, creating an extremely advanced data system that tracks all veterans in light of our statewide criteria. Our data system accounts for each veteran in the system by name, and shares up-to-date information with state leaders and frontline staff. While based on existing capabilities in HMIS, CT’s system is significantly more powerful than existing software, and allows us to track and pursue our goals much more effectively. This statewide system is – to our knowledge – unique in the U.S., and represents, we believe, the only way to reach functional zero with full confidence and efficiency. This presentation will explain the role a comprehensive data system plays in reaching functional zero, and enumerates the steps communities must pursue to develop one.

Nathan Cheung, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

This session will unpack how the formula of identification, sheltering, service intensive interventions, and swift access to housing are key to the functional end of homelessness. Demonstrating the formula utilized in Southern Nevada, participants will learn that the main components to ending homelessness must include the CoC leadership, HMIS Administration and Community Stakeholders. Presenters will share the best practices and lessons learned that have moved their community forward in their efforts towards Coordinated Entry, reaching and maintaining functional zero for Veteran homelessness, and how the community plans to replicate these efforts for systemic change to end all homelessness. This will include examples of educating the community stakeholders on the benefits of collaboration and HMIS participation,resulting in an MOU with the local VA and multiple Medical Service providers, allowing them to fully participate in the HMIS.

Jason Satterfield, Bitfocus
Tauri Royce, Bitfocus
Michele Fuller-Hallauer, Clark County, Nevada

As CoCs work towards using HMIS data for reporting to HUD on the system-level performance measures, they must work closely with their HMIS Lead Agency to develop sound local reporting, processes and governance to support these efforts. During this presentation, emerging best practices in all three of those areas will be explored and sample data reports, monitoring processes, and governance will be shared. Attendees are encouraged to also share their own experiences with trying to collaborate to improve system-level reporting in their community.

Natalie Matthews, Abt Associates; Mike Lindsay, ICF International.

As the first upload of the RHYMIS/HMIS integrated systems approached in 2015, tensions ran high as did fears. Many youth service providers felt conflict around protecting confidentiality and the growing need for data. Together, stakeholders across the board were able to move hesitantly through this first integrated upload, but a broader conversation is still necessary to move more effortlessly forward in the near future! Several critical questions will be discussed in this session.

Amy Louttit, National Network for Youth

This session will explore how the integration of Criminal Justice and Homeless Services data can shift service delivery paradigms that result in stronger client outcomes, more efficient targeting of resources, and increased community collaboration. The session will highlight examples of Corporation for Supportive Housing’s (CSH) Frequent Users Systems Engagement (FUSE) work across the country, which focuses on supportive housing for homeless, high-cost system utilizers cycling in and out of costly interventions such as jails and emergency shelters. Presenters include: CSH staff that have spearheaded data integration in FUSE projects; government stakeholders from Clark County (Nevada) Social Services, where they are in the beginning stages of integrating HMIS and jail data, and the HMIS administrator for Clark County. The content of the session will focus on the benefits of data integration across systems, strategies to engage and motivate criminal justice partners, meaningfully addressing data privacy and systemic cultural barriers, and learnings from work happening on the ground.

Whitney Lawrence, CSH
Kim Keaton, CSH
Brooke Page, Clark County Social Services
Rob Herdzik, Bitfocus

The vision of Community Information Exchange San Diego (CA San Diego) is to promote seamless care coordination to improve health and social outcomes in vulnerable populations. Secure cross platform information sharing and integration are central to CIE San Diego’s person-centered care approach and to building bridges across data silos. This session will discuss how homeless-serving community based organizations (CBOs), ambulance, and healthcare providers have implemented use of online dashboards with client program history and case manager contact information to make meaningful hand-offs, save time, providing better program targeting, and reducing recidivism. The presentation will provide an overview of CIE San Diego and describe its overarching goals, key target populations including persistently homeless individuals living in downtown San Diego, CBO and health provider partners, significant privacy and data sharing issues and how they have been addressed, and results to date from the Year One evaluation conducted by the San Diego State University Institute of Public Health.

Marina Baroff, Community Information Exchange San Diego
Dolores Diaz, Regional Task Force on the Homeless
Kris Kuntz, LeSar Development Consultants

Coordinated Entry Systems rely on the effective sharing of client data to facilitate streamlined screening and assessment and to make targeted referrals to programs and services. Many communities are exploring how HMIS can support data sharing in a coordinated entry environment, but Coordinated Entry Systems often include service providers and community partners who do not utilize HMIS. As a result, data sharing can often occur outside of HMIS to support case conferencing or develop a by-name list to prioritize and house homeless veterans, to plan patient discharge from hospitals or other institutions, and to connect unsheltered individuals and families to vital services. This session will examine various data sharing models that can be implemented in coordinated entry environments and will discuss the benefits and challenges of sharing data in HMIS as well as outside of HMIS to support an effective Coordinated Entry System.

Ryan Burger, ICF International
Chris Pitcher, ICF International
Mike Lindsay, ICF International

Description: Communities are encouraged to review their entire system of homeless services to ensure that the programs and services available fit the needs of homeless individuals and families. HUD has provided communities the flexibility to reallocate funding in order to improve the overall system of care, but communities approach this opportunity in a variety of ways. This round-table session will provide a brief overview of HUD’s System Performance Measures and will examine ways in which communities are using data to drive their decision-making process to develop reallocation strategies to improve the array of programs and services in response to changing need. Attendees are encouraged to bring examples of review and ranking tools used in their community to this round-table and share examples of how data-driven reallocation processes were implemented in their community. Other session materials can be found here.

Ryan Burger, ICFI
Chris Pitcher, ICFI
Mike Lindsay, ICFI

The State of New York is made up of multiple implementations of HMIS which serve between 1 and 23 counties each, with NYC being the largest implementation. Because of these multiple implantations plus some communities that are still not covered with an HMIS at all, the NY State Office of Temporary Assistance (NYSOTDA) has been working with HMIS System Administrators to collect the HMIS data in a warehouse in order to ascertain the true face of homelessness and service utilization in the State for better delivery of services. This presentation, given by CARES, Inc in collaboration with OTDA (who will not be present, but will assist in creating the presentation) will look at the process for creation of this data warehouse from inception to function

Allyson Thiessen, CARES, Inc.
Maureen Burns, CARES, Inc.

In August, Connecticut became the first state to end chronic veteran homelessness; in December, the state submitted its application to USICH to become the second state to officially reach functional zero among all veterans. CT’s successful campaign to functionally end veteran homelessness contained a lot of elements familiar to communities around the country – increased communication between providers, coordination of outreach efforts, better targeting and leveraging of existing housing resources. But it ultimately turned on developing a highly precise and quantitative definition of our goal, and, more importantly, creating an extremely advanced data system that tracks all veterans in light of our statewide criteria. Our data system accounts for each veteran in the system by name, and shares up-to-date information with state leaders and frontline staff. While based on existing capabilities in HMIS, CT’s system is significantly more powerful than existing software, and allows us to track and pursue our goals much more effectively. This statewide system is – to our knowledge – unique in the U.S., and represents, we believe, the only way to reach functional zero with full confidence and efficiency. – Additional Handout

Gabriel Zucker, CT Veterans Project

HIPAA, FERPA, VAWA, 42 CFR Part II–HMIS and Human Services data professionals must navigate an easily confusing alphabet soup of privacy regulations as they develop policies and procedures, facilitate collaboration and sharing, and expand the collection and use of client data in service delivery. HomeBase, a San Francisco based public policy law firm, will guide participants through the basic regulatory framework governing HMIS and related human services type client data including the basic elements of privacy regulations covering health care, substance abuse treatment, domestic violence, and school records.

We’ll discuss common privacy pitfalls and misconceptions and provide practical advice, strategies and resources to overcome them.

Jeff Ugai, HomeBase
Eli Hamilton, HomeBase

This session will inform participants on how to utilize existing data systems in order to assist with by-name list (BNL) creation within communities. Information will be conveyed through presentation of processes as well sharing best practices developed within communities. This includes a step-by-step procedure for how to think through creating a BNL: a list of its necessary components; information on data and systems utilized; a description of its management; next steps after its creation; and its role in assisting communities to end homelessness. Presenters will also discuss communities’ use of BNL to initially focus on ending veteran homelessness and their subsequent transition to focus on ending chronic and other sub-populations’ homelessness. Best practices from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Zero:2016 and Vets@Home Initiatives as well as other community examples will be shared with participants.

Susan Starrett, CSH
Margaret Palmer, CSH

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) have set a deadline for the end of Fiscal Year 2016 for all PATH providers to be participating in HMIS. Most states will reach their deadline to complete the PATH integration into HMIS between July 1 and October 1, 2016. In light of the looming deadline, this session will provide the latest guidance from HUD and SAMHSA on integrating PATH data collection into HMIS. Presenters will focus on challenges and solutions related to the collection of street outreach data, as well as practical strategies for ensuring successful PATH data entry, data quality, and data use in HMIS.

Chris Pitcher, ICF International
Mike Lindsay, ICF International
Sylvia Nelson, Center For Social Innovation

New York state is made up of multiple implementations of HMIS which serve between 1 and 23 counties each, with NYC being the largest implementation. Because of these multiple implantations plus some communities that are still not covered with an HMIS at all, the NY State Office of Temporary Assistance (NYSOTDA) has been working with HMIS System Administrators to collect the HMIS data in a warehouse in order to ascertain the true face of homelessness and service utilization in the State for better delivery of services. This presentation, given by CARES, Inc. in collaboration with OTDA (who will not be present, but will assist in creating the presentation) will look at the process for creation of this data warehouse from inception to function.

Allyson Thiessen, CARES, Inc.

This session will review successful strategies to overcome data sharing challenges. Many communities continue to struggle with developing and implementing the logistical processes to be compliant with HUD, VA and HHS programmatic requirements such as Coordinated Entry that necessitate data sharing across projects and federal programs. With one deadline from Opening Doors past and others looming, it becomes increasingly important for CoCs to bring all appropriate partners to the table in an effort to collect required data and modify systems to meet the goal of getting to “Zero”. This presentation will use a community example to of ‘what not to do’ as well as successful solutions to overcome challenges created when HIPAA and other confidentiality concerns are raised as reasons not to share data. It will also include discussion on the successes and challenges in defining the role the HMIS system will take in development of the data sharing systems. Concepts covered, in alignment with the HMIS proposed rule (maybe HMIS final rule), will revolve around processes that incorporate a strong ROI, policy development (security, reporting incidents, and disaster recovery), annual security audits, vendor inclusion and clearly defined roles and responsibilities of all participating partners.

Susan Starett, TAC
Joe Scalise, Info Line, Inc.

Turning data-driven insights into policy action hinges on the ability to effectively communicate with key stakeholders. An engaging web presence is essential to communicating your message to a broad audience, however many organizations lack the funding or resources for a dedicated web development team. We will provide a quick, 101-style overview of modern web development from planning and design to development, marketing and launch with a focus on practical, accessible tools for those without a formal development background. We highlight a number of free and/or open source tools and resources and discuss how to use them to showcase your data on the web, build your site, track performance and user engagement, and tie the site into your broader marketing and communications strategy and address common pitfalls.

Jeff Ugai, HomeBase