Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)

Alameda County to Keep Track of Homeless

ADEEL IQBAL / The Daily Californian 8sep04

[Also see EPIC Comments to Department of Housing and Urban Development 22sep03]

Alameda County is less than one month away from its deadline to implement a federally mandated program to track homeless people throughout the county.

The computerized and Internet-based Homeless Management Information System, which will collect 14 personal identifiers, such as social security numbers and birth dates, will be ready by October 1, said Megan Schatz, coordinator for the Alameda County Homeless Continuum of Care Council.

The database comes as part of a 2001 Congressional appropriations bill requiring all homeless service providers in the nation who receive federal funding to collect data on the homeless populations they serve. The data must be gathered through a computerized tracking system approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The goal is not only to provide aggregate data for analysis but also to make homeless services more effective, officials said.

“People were getting lost in the system and not getting the help they were entitled to receive,” said Larry Bush, spokesperson for HUD.

Homeless individuals receiving services within the county will now have the option of making their identifying data available to other county agencies, said Jane Micallef, homeless policy director for the city of Berkeley.

With the individuals’ consent, the information will be made available through a centralized database to all participating homeless service agencies, saving the agencies and individuals time filling out forms and waiting in lines, Schatz said.

Now, individuals will have the option of refraining from filling out forms upon a visit to a new agency.

“They will not have to do multiple intakes at multiple agencies,” Schatz said.

Requiring individuals to provide information is nothing new as it has always been a requirement for receiving services, Micallef said.

“What will change is instead of having that information sit in one agency file, it will be sent to a central system where it can be aggregated,” she said.

A minimum of 39 agencies in the county are required to meet the mandate because they receive federal funds. But the system is open to non-federally funded groups as well, bringing the total number of participating agencies in the county closer to 50, Schatz said. Six of those agencies are located in Berkeley.

Although the federal government requires the implementation of the program by October 2004, it did not provide the county with extra funds for the program’s development.

But HUD’s funding for homeless programs has increased in the past few years, according to Bush.

Of the $22 million the county receives in funding from HUD annually, $366,000 will go toward the computerized program’s development operations and staff necessary for its continued function, Schatz said.

A $20,000 grant from the Schwab Foundation allowed for a community planning process prior to the database’s implementation, she said.

For the program’s future function, money will be cut annually from two other federally funded county homeless programs.

The Oakland Army Base Workforce Development Campus and the Alameda County Families in Transition will both lose funding, Schatz said.

“It’s not OK that we have to choose between serving homeless people and collecting data about homeless people,” Schatz said. “In part because we know that essential services are going away, we are absolutely committed that this system not only meets the mandate and is of real use to homeless people and is of service to homeless people.”

Many have also expressed concerns about privacy, stating that changes in Congressional mandates may require that the information provided now be made readily accessible in the future.

But by accumulating generalized data, the county can find what areas need special attention, Bush said. It allows for more effective homeless service programs, he said.

“This absolutely has been difficult,” Schatz said. “It’s heartbreaking to know that there’s a project that you have to do and you have to defund services to make it happen. But it’s in the best interest in treating the funding we have from our federal partners.”

Kelly Paik of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.

Contact Adeel Iqbal at adeel@dailycal.org.

(c) 2003 The Daily Californian Berkeley, CA dailycal@dailycal.org

source: http://www.dailycal.org/particle.asp?id=16016 8sep04