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

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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...

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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)

14. 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.

15. 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?)

16. 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.

17. 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

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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.)

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. Data Visualization Tools
Moving the System with Data
Yilla J. Smith and Becky O’Meara
Data Visualization Tools
Free online tools
Heat maps
Wordles
Free clip art and photos
Photo editing
Use Microsoft Office, especially Excel, and Publisher

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

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

30. 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
Becky O’Meara
Community Planner