During the Great Recession of the late Aughts, the Federal Government realized that it was not enough to build and fund these housing programs. Just having the resources available to help those experiencing homelessness would not suffice. Like every product, commodity or service, without a delivery system, communities could not deal with their challenges. This was especially true given the scarcity of the resource they were trying to deliver, housing for the homeless.
This is why in its landmark legislation on homelessness, the 2009 Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act[i], and in Opening Doors[ii], the original national strategic plan to end homelessness[iii], established under the Act, Congress mandated that there needed to be a homeless response system in every community. Crucially, Congress tasked organizations like ours, in most American communities, with the responsibility and necessary statutory authority to establish and run these robust systems. 
The Five Important Roles of MDHA, as Tasked by Congress and the President
- Facilitate $17 million of Federal Continuum of Care (CoC) funding annually, for homeless services programs;
- Administer the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a community-wide database, that drives improvement of homeless services programs, serving about 17,000 persons;
- Maintain a count of persons experiencing homelessness;
- Maintain an inventory of housing and shelter beds for the homeless and formerly homeless;
- Develop and quarterback an effective unified homeless response system, where all homeless services programs work together to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring.
[i] See https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/S896_HEARTHAct.pdf, for Act’s full text (p.32 on).
[ii] http://usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/USICH_OpeningDoors_Amendment2015_FINAL.pdf
[iii] A new national strategic plan to end homelessness, https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Home-Together-Federal-Strategic-Plan-to-Prevent-and-End-Homelessness.pdf, came out in mid-2018.
