Tuesday, December 17, 2019

HMIS Usage and Value in Sonoma County

Greetings!

I want to use this post to collect the information that Sonoma County reports to HUD.

This information below (and commentary from me) provides insight into how many beds we have in various categories, and what percentage in each category are participating in our HMIS system. It is helpful to me to be able to better understand our capacity for serving homeless, and how accurately we can measure outcomes.

Gregory


The summary is:

699 shelter beds, 28 dedicated to domestic violence, 93.44% participating in HMIS.  100 beds not in HMIS.  Which agencies are these beds in?
275 transitional housing beds, 182 in HMIS, 193 not in HMIS. Which agencies are these beds in?
495 rapid re-housing beds, all in HMIS.
764 permanent supportive housing beds, 305 in HMIS, 459 not in HMIS. Which agencies are these beds in? 
318 other permanent housing beds, 169 in HMIS, 149 not in HMIS.  Which agencies are these beds in?

Excluding rapid re-housing, 1255 beds in HMIS, 901 not in HMIS (72%).

If outcome measures beyond the shelter are the key to the performance of our system, how do you accomplish that if a majority of those beds are not being included?  Of the 1357 beds in non-shelter, non-rapid re-housing in Sonoma County (which HMIS was designed for), 801 beds are not being entered into HMIS (59%).