Using Your Data Jo Zimmer – Rural Oregon Continuum of Care Justina Fyfe – United Community Action Network Molly Heiss – NeighborImpact Jennifer Ross – Oregon Housing and Community Services

Opening Overview of Session Who’s in the Room Expectations

Context: What is HMIS? A Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a locally administered, electronic data collection system that stores longitudinal person-level information about persons who access the homeless service system in a Continuum of Care.

Context: History of HMIS Several communities in early 90s had locally developed data collection systems (i.e. St. Louis, Kansas City) Spearheaded by HUD, HHS, and Dr. Dennis Culhane (UPenn) -the first national software prototype (ANCHoR) was deployed in 1995/6 1996 -National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (Burt) 1999 -First attempt to generate national estimates of homelessness from local administrative data (Culhane) 2001 Congress directed HUD on the need for data and analysis on the extent of homelessness and the effectiveness of the McKinney-Vento Act Programs Developing unduplicated counts of clients served at the local level Analyzing patterns of use of people entering and exiting the homeless assistance system Evaluating the effectiveness of these systems HMIS becomes eligible activity under 2001 CoC NOFA 2009 HEARTH Act HMIS participation requirements

Context: Who is Responsible for HMIS? The Continuum of Care (CoC) is responsible for HMIS implementation including planning, software selection, and compliance with HMIS Standards Project applicants must participate in the local HMIS HUD only allows one HMIS-dedicated grant within a CoC The HMIS Lead Agency (or grantee) is an agent of the CoC. Manages HMIS operations Provides HMIS administration functions at the direction of the CoC

Context: Data and CoC Funding HUD focus shift into data-driven planning, strategy development, and competitive review ROCC evolution from subjective to objective 2017 funding competition System Performance Measures

Data Entry What is Data Entry What do you need? Act of inputting/updating data in a computer system What do you need? Data base to input data Staff to do the data entry Method for pulling data out of the data base

Data Entry What are UDE’s 13 key pieces of information or data including: Universal Data Elements Name Disabling Condition Social Security Number Residence Prior to project Entry Date of Birth Destination at Exit Race Relationship to Head of Household Ethnicity Client Location Gender Length of time on street, in ES or SH Veteran Status Adults – Adults/HoH - HoH

Data Entry What are UDE’s … Continued 5 Additional Date Elements Domestic Violence Service Income Received (Y/N) Non-Cash Benefits Received (Y/N) Covered by Health Insurance (Y/N) Reported on all Household members

Data Entry What programs required UDE Information Coordinated Entry VA Programs – SSVF HUD Programs – ESG, CoC Administration for Children and Families – RHY State Programs – EHA, HSP, SHAP

Data Entry What does this information do? Pulls data into a variety of reports Data Quality/Completeness ESG Caper CoC Annual Progress Report (APR) System Performance Measures (SPM’s) Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR)

Data Entry Who uses these reports? Agencies like Community Action State – OHCS Federal - HUD

Data Entry How are reports used? Program Compliance Number served Was all data collected in input Number served Did you meet your target to be served Scoring for the CoC Grant Application Process HUH????

Universal Data Element Data Entry How are reports used for scoring?? 2016 HMIS Data Quality 2D-1. Indicate the percentage of unduplicated client records with null or missing values and the percentage of "Client Doesn't Know" or "Client Refused" within the last 10 days of January 2016. Universal Data Element Percentage Null or Missing Percentage Client Doesn’t Know or Refused 3.1 Name 0% 3.2 Social Security Number 9% 7% 3.3 Date of Birth 8% 3.4 Race 2%

Data Entry 2016 HMIS Data Quality These are application submitted numbers Prior to using these numbers some in the section were over 35% null or missing Goal is less than 5% in any element 2017 System Performance Measures (SPM’s) replaced the HMIS Data Quality Like HMIS Data Quality, SPM’s cover all programs in Service Point except one which is CoC grants only There are 7 SPM Reports that utilize UDE’s

Data Entry Clip below references UDE “Residence Prior to Program Entry”. Note that this report covers a two year period.

Data Entry There are other uses of the Data Collected

How do you create value using your data? Community Engagement How do you create value using your data? Quality Analysis Interpretation Relevance

Quality Community Engagement Explaining the WHY to staff doing data entry Resources for continued support and training Hard to grow investment if data is not good Collecting data that is focused

Analysis Community Engagement Raw data not preferred Time to distill not available Not easy to make connections Helps to identify outliers, surprises, gaps

Interpretation Community Engagement Do the data make sense? Translating numbers into answers Completing the picture Holistic assessment

Relevance Community Engagement Link the data to the need or purpose Connect questions to answers Make it applicable to the communities

I’ve created some value in my data, now what? Community Engagement I’ve created some value in my data, now what? Take it out and share it Consider your audience Cultivate interest in HMIS Resource for jurisdictions

A Data-Driven Agency is Built on a Foundation of Quality Data Funding competitions, performance measures, needs assessments, strategic planning, efficient program delivery – all rely on data

Increased Attention to Data - Reports Providers HUD OHCS VA HHS Federal Agencies State of Oregon Legislature OHCS OHCS Legislature HHS DHS HUD

Federal Report – ESG CAPER Annual report out to HUD as part of the Consolidated Plan Switch to Sage ESG CAPER report in ServicePoint – numerous data quality tables

State Legislature – Data Requests KPM – permanent housing retention Numbers served by program Increase in funds has led to increase in attention Want specifics Want more info about outcomes, not just outputs

OHCS - Reports Had to “up our game” Changed reporting process to direct downloads from database Working to create dashboards Set the groundwork for the future

Questions? Jo Zimmer – jozimmer@comcast.net Justina Fyfe - justina.fyfe@ucancap.org Molly Heiss - mollyh@neighborimpact.org Jennifer Ross – jennifer.ross@oregon.gov