Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara

Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Background The Planning Council has been a 501(c)3 for over 75 years, providing health & human services planning Backbone support agency for 2 CoCs HMIS administrators for 4 CoCs HMIS host for 1 additional CoC Geographic coverage ranges from Central to Southeastern Virginia TPC has a special interest in ending homelessness

Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Key Accomplishments Functional end to veteran homelessness in the state of Virginia Decrease in homelessness by 3% for SVHC and 13% for GVPHC in the past 4 years, according to the PIT Count data Rapid Rehousing Capacity: 581% bed increase for SVHC, 184% bed increase for GVPHC since 2014 Prioritize funding & housing resources for most vulnerable Increased access to and awareness of homeless data in the community Click to show each bullet point. Sometimes progress can feel slow and difficult, but we persevere and get results! Next slides will show how we do this.

Data & Reporting Analyze Communicate Strategize Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Data & Reporting Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Annual Point in Time Count (PIT) and Housing Inventory Count (HIC) System Performance Measures (SPMs) CoC Annual Performance Report (APR) HMIS Client and Program Data Custom Reporting Analyze Communicate Strategize Round up of the required reporting and data sources (both required by funders and not), to show the broad range of data that is available that we then need to sift through to come up with usable reports for the community, ie, the Vision Update...

All of This Data’s Great, Now What? Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara All of This Data’s Great, Now What? Strategies: Sift through multitude of available data to create usable, valuable reports for the community Coordinate with HMIS Administrator Work with the community to see what is important to them Get feedback, and then apply it to your reports Remember the numbers you are crunching are based on real people; the data is input by more real people. Help them understand their importance to the process CoC-driven approach to data reporting. Moving beyond data entry and participation requirements of funding sources

All of This Data’s Great, Now What? Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara All of This Data’s Great, Now What? Know your audience Communicate data across all levels of knowledge Repetition Familiarity lends itself to comprehension Data is a starting point for planning It’s ok to not have a plan at the start of the data review, but it’s vital to have the data when it’s time to plan CoC-driven approach to data reporting. Moving beyond data entry and participation requirements of funding sources

Raise awareness, educate, advocate Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Community Engagement Strategies: Work with the community to see what is important to them Remember the numbers you are crunching are based on real people Know your audience Raise awareness, educate, advocate Data Dashboard PIT Report AHAR

Data Dashboard Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Data Dashboard All reports are reviewed and edited by team members; some are reviewed externally. Data Dashboard Audience: the broader community; snapshot of characteristics of local homeless population, PH exits, new prevention cases, and community spotlight (engagement effort with less involved partners, highlight special programs and events). Quarterly report created at the request of community partners.

Point in Time Count Data Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Point in Time Count Data Timed animation: Additional PIT report pages automatically appear. Show how HUD required PIT report is different from what we provide to the community; different presentations for different audiences; distribution via list serv, website, presentations to stakeholders

Point in Time Count Data Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Point in Time Count Data Show how HUD required PIT report is different from what we provide to the community; different presentations for different audiences; distribution via list serv, website, presentations to stakeholders; Manually click through the pages to emphasize what is shared; overview of PIT, this year’s methodology and data, trends over the years, with analysis

Point in Time Count Data Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Point in Time Count Data Show how HUD required PIT report is different from what we provide to the community; different presentations for different audiences; distribution via list serv, website, presentations to stakeholders; Manually click through the pages to emphasize what is shared; overview of PIT, this year’s methodology and data, trends over the years, with analysis

AHAR Data Used to support other reports Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara AHAR Data Used to support other reports Opportunity to assess HMIS data quality and coverage A point of engagement for non-HMIS participating agencies Screen shot of HUD summary report export from HDX

System Performance Measures Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara System-wide Analysis Strategies: Sift through multitude of available data to create usable reports Know your audience Repetition Vision Update CoC Annual Reports System Performance Measures Describe the data points, and how and why they were chosen (SPMs were dictated by HUD, but the others were an iterative process with the committees: vision update; Annual Report outlined around Opening Doors)

Vision Update: The early days… Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: The early days… Vision Update Case study: In-house working draft (Verbal intro, then click to have it appear); bi-monthly report to CoC partners on progress made towards realizing the CoC’s vision that homelessness will be rare, brief, and non-recurring.

Vision Update: The early days… Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: The early days… Shifted to data table, but still looking at how to present the data (monthly, or quarter to date and most recent month?)

Vision Update: Transitions Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: Transitions Decided on quarter to date for first update; added to regularly scheduled CoC membership meeting. Introduced and discussed with community partners. This slide is really just to show the way it was presented, not necessarily the actual data.

Vision Update: Transitions Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: Transitions Based on feedback from the CoC partners, new fields were added: Literally homeless, new HMIS clients, Prevention Clients

Vision Update: Transitions Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: Transitions Based on feedback from the community, split out Exits to PH between singles and families; no longer looked at LOS 180 days+, since report group included PSH/OPH; Added graphs to visualize trends; this update shows the first year’s worth of data for this particular report; easy to see annual trends; will be able to form a baseline for comparison in the future.

Vision Update: Today Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Vision Update: Today Data Table comparison to prior year’s monthly average. New visualizations: Inflow Vs. Outflow, re-vamped Rare graph, added ES and TH PH Exits

CoC Annual Reports Outlined around the goals of Opening Doors Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara CoC Annual Reports Outlined around the goals of Opening Doors Audience ranging from CoC partners to the general community Broad overview of CoCs Funding Information Housing Inventory Capacity Incorporated the SPMs this year A few examples of our visualizations and information provided in the annual reports.

System Performance Measures Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara System Performance Measures Timed Animation: Click to show first page after verbal intro. Additional pages of the SPMs appear automatically. Our intent here is not to provide an in-depth analysis of the SPMs, but to show how they are exported from HDX. The SPMs were dictated by HUD. The next slide shows how we analyzed and visualized the SPMs for community (Draft); Many similarities between these and our Vision Update

System Performance Measures Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara System Performance Measures Provided Overview of SPMs, 2 year comparison, and analysis; deeper dive likely to happen in Program Monitoring Committees; end with overview analysis summary

Using Data to Make Decisions Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Using Data to Make Decisions Strategies: Sift through multitude of available data to create usable reports Data is a starting point for planning Work with the community to see what is important to them Scorecard Gap Analysis Explain rationale behind ranking and how that relates to strategic funding decisions (Tier 1 and Tier 2, reallocation, priorities for new project funding, etc.); Gap analysis intended to help CoC determine funding priorities for project application ranking, as well.

CoC Scorecard Ranking Tool Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara CoC Scorecard Ranking Tool Agency names removed. Describe the data points, and how and why they were chosen; explain rationale behind ranking and how that relates to strategic funding decisions (Tier 1 and Tier 2, reallocation, priorities for new project funding, etc.)

Gap Analysis Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Gap Analysis Verbal Intro, click for first picture to appear. DRAFT, still in review; conducted on behalf of the SVHC utilizing AHAR, Service Coordination Committee, and Annual Performance Report HMIS data. Split between single adults and households with children to consider the varying needs of those populations. HHwC shown here for reference.

What best tells the story you are trying to communicate? Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Data Visualization What best tells the story you are trying to communicate? Trends over time Allows audience to quickly grasp the data Sometimes less is more Combination of stats and graphs; people will look at pictures and graphs first, so be sure it communicates as much as your narrative, which they may not read! Keep the graphs simple. Communicating your data is more important than being flashy, although it’s ok to use images and quirky aspects when appropriate.

Data Visualization Tools Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Data Visualization Tools Free online tools Heat maps http://www.openheatmap.com/ Wordles http://worditout.com/ http://www.wordclouds.com/ Free clip art and photos https://pixabay.com/ https://openclipart.org/ Photo editing https://www.gimp.org/ Use Microsoft Office, especially Excel, and Publisher

Websites www.shrhomeless.org www.gvphc.org www.theplanningcouncil.org Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Websites www.shrhomeless.org www.gvphc.org www.theplanningcouncil.org

Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara http://startupquote.com/post/11697249030

Questions? Yilla J. Smith Manager of Housing & Community Engagement Moving the System with Data Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara Questions? Yilla J. Smith Manager of Housing & Community Engagement ysmith@theplanningcouncil.org Becky O’Meara Community Planner romeara@theplanningcouncil.org