Homelessness Response System

IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPACT OF OUR HOMELESSNESS RESPONSE SYSTEM THROUGH INCREASED COORDINATION AND PLANNING 

Now more than ever we must strengthen our capacity to use data and ensure that resources are directed where they are needed most. Public officials at all levels of government must work together to integrate data systems, increase interagency collaboration and improve coordination and planning. Robust measures are also needed to ensure that interventions are effective and producing meaningful outcomes. 

TOGETHER WE MUST: 

• Align Housing and Services with Changing Population Needs and Growing Demand
  • Point-in-Time (PIT) Count. Use administrative data to improve the accuracy of the unsheltered Point-in-Time count, per GAO recommendations. Integrate data from PIT counts conducted by City agencies and business improvement districts (i.e. OHS, DBHIDS, SEPTA, PPD, CCD). Identify overlooked hot spots such as emergency rooms, hospitals and jails in an “expanded count.”

  • Conduct an annual gap analysis to estimate how many additional units of housing are required to meet the needs of unhoused people each year. Provide level funding for emergency shelters to ensure that no one is turned away due to bed capacity or staffing shortages. 

     

• Restore Direct Access to Emergency Shelter Beds. Fast-track connections to emergency housing by ensuring that all street outreach workers have direct access to a daily pool of emergency shelter beds. Reinstate direct access to shelter beds, pre-September 2023, including youth access point beds. 

   

• Improve Coordination.  Instruct the Office of Homeless Services (OHS) and the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) to work collaboratively. Ensure that coordinated entry is truly coordinated by implementing a single, unified, and fully integrated data system. Incorporate data into the Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS).
  • Integrate. Implement a “no-wrong door” philosophy, where there is no wrong door to accessing any of the emergency shelters, safe havens or permanent supportive housing options funded by OHS and DBH.
  • Modernize. Invest in the technological upgrades that are required to operate a modern homeless services system. Create a database that will show all available emergency shelter beds and safe haven beds, anywhere in the system, in real time.

  • Provide HIPAA Guidance. Provide guidance to support data sharing between systems. Address HIPAA compliance and “perceived legal barriers” per USICH recommendations. 

     

• Coordinated Entry.  Evaluate the use of the VI-SPDAT in housing assessments from an equity lens. Provide more equitable, individualized, and timely housing interventions through the coordinated entry system. Ensure that matches to housing are based on people’s identified needs and preferences. Fill vacancies quickly. 

   

• Improve the Annual CoC Competition. Provide greater transparency into the scoring process for the Continuum of Care competition. Set providers up for success with increased training and support for program analysts to who are working with providers. 

   

• Improve Quality. Instruct the Office of Homeless Services (OHS) and the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) to leverage their power as funders to improve quality throughout the homeless services system.
  • Establish Goals. Work with service providers to measure their current performance, establish a baseline and set agreed upon “stretch goals” for the upcoming fiscal year (e.g. a performance improvement of 15 to 20 percent).
  • Provide Resources. Provide financial resources to ensure that providers are able to achieve their agreed upon goals, including annual cost of living increases for employees.

  • Improve coordination and communication with service providers. Increase transparency, communication, and ongoing program evaluations with meaningful feedback and opportunities to make improvements. 

     

• Increase Transparency, Accountability and Oversight
  • Secret Shoppers. Measure compliance with the Emergency Housing Standards, issued by the Office of Homeless Services, by implementing an approach similar to the HUD “secret shopper” model, where housing testers test compliance with the Fair Housing Act.

  • Revise the Complaint Process. Provide transparency into the volume and nature of complaints recorded through the OHS Comment Line by publishing data on the OHS website. Publish guidance for shelter discharges and create clear avenues for an appeal.

     

• Plan for Weather Emergencies
  • Improve Planning and Coordination
    • Prepare a comprehensive Winter Initiative (WI) plan based on trends in unsheltered homelessness and shelter utilization.
    • Include contingency plans for an unexpected loss of beds, a surge in the demand for shelter, or severe weather (i.e. a snowstorm or an extended Code Blue).
    • Circulate the Winter Initiative plan to key stakeholders in writing. Solicit feedback from service providers, emergency management, city officials and people with lived experience of homelessness. Set clear timelines for when providers can expect to see the Winter Initiative plan and when they must respond with feedback
    • Limit shelter and safe haven discharges to incidents of violence or threats of violence during a Code Blue or Code Red.
  • Improve Tracking and Data Collection
    • Ensure that Winter Initiative resources are used efficiently by revising the enrollment/ sign-in process for warming centers.
    • Reserve warming centers for unsheltered people without a housing placement and re-direct individuals who have been placed to those locations. Provide transportation between warming centers at regularly scheduled intervals, rather than on-demand.
  • Expedite Connections to Housing
    • Assign mobile housing assessors and/or intake workers from the Office of Homeless Services to each winter initiative site.
    • Further invest in Tenant Service Coordinators to facilitate housing connections for HCV (including locating furniture and other essentials)