Hless Alliance Looks at Trends

 By Sarah Owens

 

The Mid-Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance is trying to figure out just what the data (specifically, its "system performance" data) reveal about Marion and Polk counties' homeless services delivery system, and the picture is none too clear.  

The good news -- above all -- is that for the first time ever, we have an Alliance, a committed group of professionals from government and non-governmental agencies, asking questions and expecting to see improvements in the homeless services delivery system, and at the same time, offering supports to make that happen.  The other good news is that we have our own discrete data, specific to this geographic area, and not blended in with the data from 26 other counties.  (See the many posts on how Marion and Polk counties came to separate from the 28-county Rural Oregon Continuum of Care by searching on the CANDO Archive issue, "ROCC: Leave or Remain?")

Now for the numbers.  Looking at the staff report, which compares FFY 2018/19 SPMs with FFY 2019/20 SPMs, it does appear that more people exited emergency shelter into what's termed a "positive housing placement", but, for reasons no one really knows, the region is not reducing the length of time persons are in homeless service programs, or the number of homeless persons.  For now, C19 can usefully be blamed for this trend.

But, as horrid as the C19 year has been, we can thank C19 for forcing the cancellation of HUD's annual funding competition, and allowing the Alliance to avoid a challenge it most probably was not prepared to meet, given its inexperience and the negative trend in measures that can't be blamed on C19.  See "COVID Kills 2020 CoC Competition for Homeless $$"  (28 July 2020). 

The staff report (which is embedded below) was shared last week with the Alliance's Performance and Evaluation Committee, about three and a half hours before the meeting.  Asked during the meeting to speculate on what each of the graphs might mean, the committee basically scratched its collective head and said very little.  Consider if you would have done any better.     

 

 

It might help to know that Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) is included in Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), that the number of homeless persons = the number accessing emergency services, and that the area's largest emergency shelter provider, Union Gospel Mission, only recently and only partly began participating in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).  According to staff, The Arches Project's "robust prevention/diversion program" may be credited for the reduction in the number of people accessing services for the first time.

The Alliance board will be receiving the staff report at its January meeting next week, which is open to the public.  Meeting details can be found on the Alliance calendar, here.  This post will be updated.