Counting the Homeless: Homeless Management Information Systems

In 1998, Congress directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop a process for collecting data about the homeless. Together with local communities, HUD began in 2001 to implement a series of Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS). Two categories of federal fund recipients are required to participate in HMIS: organizations that receive grants through the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program and organizations that receive HUD Homeless Assistance Grants. The HOPWA program provides housing and supportive services for persons living with AIDS, while the Homeless Assistance Grants fund transitional and permanent housing, as well as services, for homeless individuals. Local jurisdictions called "Continuums of Care" (CoCs) -- typically cities, counties, or combinations of both -- are the entities that implement HMIS. Homeless service providers in these CoCs collect and store information about homeless individuals they serve, and the information is aggregated in computer systems at the CoC level. HUD anticipates that information about homeless individuals from CoCs across the country eventually will help it to better serve the needs of the homeless. HUD released the first analysis of data from a sample of participating HMIS jurisdictions -- the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) -- in February 2007. The AHAR used HMIS data from a sample of 64 communities to derive national-level estimates of the number of homeless at two points in time in 2005, and over a three-month period from February to April 2005. The report also provided point-in-time estimates of homeless individuals from counts done by local communities in January 2005. It is expected that data from HMIS eventually will provide an unduplicated count of the number of homeless from communities across the country. Source: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress

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