HMIS and Bed Usage Rates

Revised: January 2019

 

By Sarah Owens and Michael Livingston

Image: Kitwe Co, UK

In October, CANDO made a recommendation to the Mid Willamette Homeless Initiative Task Force (MWHITF) to advocate for a systematic approach to improving homeless services delivery, starting with wider use of ServicePoint, a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) application in use in Oregon, and the development of a coordinated assessjment and entry system (CES).

Those who don't live in the world of homeless services delivery, or haven't made a study of it, might be unfamiliar with these tools.  The purpose of this post, and the next one, is to give readers some idea what they can do.

HMIS is concerned primarily with housing.  HUD requires every continuum of care (CoC) to inventory the housing available in their community, and issue an annual Housing Inventory Count report.

When an Oregon provider enters bed-usage data in ServicePoint, HUD counts those beds as "HMIS-covered."  A high bed coverage rate means the data will be meaningful.  CoCs that have high coverage rates are better able to compete for HUD funding.  Here's what the HMIS-coverage situation looks like in Region 7, based on the last bed inventory count (shaded = not covered):

Region 7 2016 Housing Programs

	Program	*	Fam Units	Fam Beds	Child Only Beds	Adult Only Beds	Total Beds
S	Salem IHN		4	14			14
S	Center for H&S	DV	3	13		2	15
S	UGM Simonka		5	18		78	96
S	UGM Men’s					114 (+94 overfl)	208
S	Sable House	DV				10	10
S	Polk County					3	3
S	NWHS SOS				15		15
S	Total Beds						361

	Program	*	Fam Units	Fam Beds	Child Only Beds	Adult Only Beds	Total Beds
TH	St Francis		14	46			46
TH	St Joseph		17	51			51
TH	Salvation Army					84	84
TH	Shangri-La		2	4		14	18
TH	Grace House					9 (W)	9
TH	UGM Men’s					56 (M)	56
TH	Titus Hse	AD				6	6
TH	Shelly’s Hse	CH				17 (W)	17
TH	Rstration Hse	CH				48 (M)	48
TH	HOB	V				5 (M)	5
TH	NWHS				8		8
TH	Total Beds						351

	Program	*	Fam Units	Fam Beds	Adult Only Beds	Total Beds
PSH	SHA-CHDV		3	15	6	21
PSH	SHA-VASH		6	20	48	68
PSH	NWHS-HOAP				9	9
PSH	Shangri-La 0		4	8	12	20
PSH	Shangri-La 2		3	5	4	9
PSH	Shangri-La B				5	5
RRH	CAA-SSVF		2	8	3	11
RRH	CAA-OHCS		3	10	7	17
RRH	CAA-ARCHES		10	23	20	43
RRH	CAA-ARCHES		2	4	3	7
	Total Beds					210

S-Shelter  TH-Transitional Housing   PSH-Permanent Supportive Housing   RRH-Rapid Re-Housing   DV-domestic violence   AD-alcohol/drug addiction  CH-criminal history  V-veterans  SHA-Salem Housing Authority   

CH&S-Center for Hope and Safety  CAA-MWVCommunity Action Agency     HH-Household   NWHS-Northwest Human Services      HOB-Home of the Brave (closed summer 2016)  CHDV-Chronically Homeless Disabled Vet SSVF-Supportive Svces for Vet Families

Not included, Father Taafee Homes, Woodmansee Community, River of Life House, Safe Families, Polk CDC, Oxford Houses

Based on the above data, Region 7's bed coverage rates look like this:

Housing Type	Total Beds in HIC	Total DV Beds in HIC	Total HMIS Beds	HMIS Coverage Rate
Shelter	361	25	14	4%
TH	351	0	124	35%
PSH	132	0	34	26%
RRH	78	0	78	100%

These rates are so low (RRH excepted) as to limit the usefulness of the data as systems measures.  Region 7's rates also drag down ROCC's rates (see below) (though Region 7 isn't the only one doing this), and limits the usefulness of ROCC's data as systems measures.  For that reason,  they also harm ROCC's ability to compete on a national level for CoC Program funding.

ROCC's 2016 Consolidated Application

ROCC's 2016 Consolidated Application

For the past several years, HUD has steadily raised the bar as CoCs improve their data collection and fine-tune their tools and methods.  If a CoC's bed coverage rate is below a certain percentage, the CoC "loses points" and below-par data won't be accepted for HUD's statistical purposes.   Here to the left is what ROCC told HUD this year about its low bed coverage rates (BOS CoC is another name for ROCC).

Translated, ROCC is acknowledging that it has not been able to persuade non-grantee providers (i.e., providers who don't receive HUD funding) to use ServicePoint.  We would question whether ROCC is "diligently working" to obtain those providers support.  Barriers include 1) license fees ($350/yr), 2) staff time (a few hours/wk), 3) philosophical objections, 4) security objections, 5) culture of non-cooperation among providers.   

To get some idea what coverage rates could tell us, at right is a draft of the most recent report on ROCC's Bed Coverage Rate (BCR) and Bed Utilization Rate (BUR).  The BUR, if based on accurate inputs, indicates how efficiently  programs are operating, and whether they're meeting the needs of the homeless community.

However, the BUR here is not based on sufficient  inputs.  The BCRs for ESFAM, ESIND, THFAM and THIND are too low because too few providers participated in HMIS.   

Other ROCC measures (Average HH Size, Length of Stay), are similarly unreliable.

(When HUD has finished reviewing the data in this report, asterisks will appear by "ESFAM, ESIND, THFAM and THIND" to indicate those coverage rates are unacceptable.) 

Next:  HMIS and Coordinated Entry