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Helping the Homeless

Under a federal mandate, government and nonprofit agencies are installing Web-based technology to track and help the nation's homeless.

Ask five experts how many Americans are homeless and you are likely to get five different answers.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, there are at least four widely used national estimates of homelessness. One dates from 1988, when a point-in-time estimate figured there were approximately 500,000 to 600,000 homeless people in shelters. In 1999, the figure was raised to 700,000 people living in shelters on any given night and up to 2 million people who experience homelessness during one year, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness.

But those vague estimates may soon come to an end. Under a federal mandate, government and nonprofit agencies that serve the homeless must implement technology that keeps track of their clients. Congress has required the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to collect data on the homeless to prevent duplicate counts and to analyze patterns of use for assistance. As a result of this stipulation, any agency receiving funding from HUD must have an information system in place by 2004.

The mandate has unleashed a scramble among agencies to find affordable software that can track the homeless population without violating anyone's privacy. To meet the demand, software firms have stepped up with a variety of solutions, a number of which are Web based. Though it's still too early to tell whether the infusion of technology will do the job required by HUD, early results look promising.

Data on Homeless Lacking

Five years ago, Massachusetts and the city of Boston tried to get a handle on how many people were homeless in the state, where they came from and what happened to them after they left a homeless shelter. "It quickly became clear that there was no good information on the extent of homelessness in Boston and Massachusetts," said Donna Haig Friedman, director of the Center for Social Policy at the McCormack Institute, which is run by the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "We lacked evidence on how to target prevention resources."

Friedman said with just a little bit of data, such as which particular geographic area of the state homeless families came from, homeless agencies could focus resources on a specific location to alleviate the problem. But nobody had a clue. Homeless agencies were also making little effort to use technology to improve internal operations. Agencies with limited manpower had to wade through a sea of paperwork from HUD and other funding sources to the detriment of their core mission: helping the homeless.

Early efforts at automation in the mid-1990s involved client/server systems that could support paperwork but weren't able to share data, making it difficult, if not impossible, to track clients. Confidentiality could not be ensured with the technology. These systems were also costly, requiring an agency to install a server, hire a network administrator and upgrade existing computer systems. Not surprisingly, only the largest homeless agencies had the resources to use these stand-alone systems, and even then the homeless support community, according to officials, didn't universally embrace the technology.

Web-based Changes

In 2000, the McCormack Institute conducted an analysis of existing homeless management information systems (HMIS) for HUD. It found that a number of vendors were now offering solutions that were Web-based, could host tracking data on a centralized server and were able to maintain a high degree of confidentiality. Now, even small agencies had a choice of low-cost solutions to track the homeless, produce reports and provide referrals for homeless people seeking health care, food stamps and other basic services. The technology options included ServicePoint from Bowman Internet Systems, MetSYS 2000 from MetSYS Inc. and ClientTrak from Data Systems International, among others.

By cobbling together modest amounts of funding, state and local governments are working with nonprofit homeless agencies to build networked systems to track the homeless. Already, between 20 and 25 jurisdictions -- some statewide, some local -- are beginning to implement tracking systems, according to Friedman.

Last year, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which serves the city and county of Los Angeles, received $48 million from HUD for homeless programs, including the installation of an HMIS. The local governments must have at least 60 percent of the agencies that serve Los Angeles' homeless linked up to the system if they are to continue receiving HUD funding, according to Natalie Profant-Komaro, director of the authority's policy and legislative affairs.

"Congress has spent billions of dollars on the homeless but hasn't a clue how many people it has helped. With an HMIS, we can provide them with better accountability," she said. Although the authority's HMIS is currently in the planning process, the local agency expects to have its system in place in time for the 2004 deadline.

In Massachusetts, the McCormack Institute is managing a statewide, Web-based system that uses Bowman Internet Systems' ServicePoint software. The system's server is hosted by the state's Information Technology Department, and currently tracks homeless clients from more than 140 shelter programs across the state, representing more than 60 percent of individuals and families served in the state's emergency shelters. Through multi-year funding from Boston and Massachusetts, statewide expansion of the network is under way, with a long-term goal of including 90 percent or more of the publicly funded shelters in the state.

Another statewide implementation is taking place in Wisconsin. There, 84 government and nonprofit agencies have agreed to participate in the homeless network, which is being rolled out during the course of the year. The state will also use ServicePoint software to track and report on Wisconsin's homeless.

So far, the Division of Housing & Intergovernmental Relations (DHIR) has spent approximately $465,000 on software and training and has installed the homeless tracking system at about 50 government and nonprofit sites in urban and rural areas, according to Julie Hovden, DHIR's community services specialist.

She explained that the state charges the homeless agencies a fee ranging from $500 to $3,000 to use the Web-based system. The server is hosted by Bowman Internet Systems. Hovden said DHIR decided to invest in the technology when it saw how reasonable the cost would be by running the system on the Internet versus in a traditional client/server environment.

Because many organizations that deal with the homeless are domestic violence organizations, security and confidentiality were crucial factors in getting these agencies to sign up and use the system. Data collected by ServicePoint is encrypted at the server level as well as during transmission. Other agencies involved include 13 faith-based organizations, 27 transitional housing groups and several that serve tribal groups and veterans.

"Everybody now wants a better handle on what can identify a trend in terms of homelessness, what works and what doesn't," said Hovden, as she explained how the system benefits the state. "With a centralized server collecting data across the state, we can pull aggregate numbers on the number of nights a person spends at a shelter and identify what helps or hinders their move to more permanent housing."

Mammoth Undertakings

Officials from Massachusetts and Wisconsin warn, however, that homeless tracking systems are mammoth undertakings that require tremendous outreach to bring homeless agencies on board as well as a steady source of funding and training. HUD requires that at least 50 percent of a jurisdiction's shelter facilities are using the system in order to continue receiving funding.

In Texas, implementation of a statewide homeless tracking system has been met with skepticism by homeless advocates who worry about their clients' confidentiality and the cost of supporting the technology among agencies that operate on shoestring budgets. That same attitude has also cropped up in other places, including Wisconsin. "Lots of these agencies see every dollar that goes towards technology as one less dollar they can spend on helping the homeless," said Hovden.

Further, they see a data collection system as something that does little to help their clients directly. But that's beginning to change, according to the McCormack Institute's Friedman. She pointed out that vendors are beginning to introduce components that can be added to the system to act as a resource directory. These tools will help case managers determine more quickly whether the homeless family needs food stamps, health care and a job along with housing.

But the biggest reward of using technology is the knowledge behind the numbers the homeless agencies will collect. Implementing these kinds of centralized systems forces different stakeholders to come together and hammer out agreements that, ultimately, are in the best interests of homeless clients.

"By working together and setting standards on data sets, people who are often on opposite ends of an argument can collaboratively solve and address the issue of homelessness," said Friedman.
With more than 20 years of experience covering state and local government, Tod previously was the editor of Public CIO, e.Republic’s award-winning publication for information technology executives in the public sector. He is now a senior editor for Government Technology and a columnist at Governing magazine.