In 2015-2017, MDHA built an effective unified homeless response system, with four main pillars[i]:
Diversion – It seeks to divert individuals from having to enter into or engage with the system. It recognizes that homelessness is not homogeneous; it is on a continuum. Many of those who seek our help have the capacity to self-resolve, with the help of mainstream resources, or “light touch” one-time assistance[ii]. MDHA’s three largest shelter partners, Austin Street Center, The Bridge, and Family Gateway have all instituted and now practice effective diversion protocols.
Assess, Prioritize, Place – It assesses, prioritizes, and only then places individuals into housing. In the absence of such a system, homeless service providers each operate on their own, and when approached by an individual needing help, typically ask some version of this question, “Will this person be successful in our program?” This leads to those with lesser needs and lower vulnerability being served, while those with greater needs and vulnerability are turned away. In an effective coordinated system, the system asks, “What solutions best match the needs of this person, and will end their homelessness quickly and permanently?”
The system has one (virtual) entry point only. At that entry point, the system:
Assesses each person, objectively and uniformly, using an evidence-based tool[iii];
Prioritizes each person for service, based on the level of their vulnerability and according to their specific needs;
Places all clients on a unified Housing Priority List (HPL), and clients are housed based on their priority status and specific needs, with those with greater need and vulnerability housed first. MDHA’s HPL is now in such common use in the Dallas homeless response ecosystem, that it has become part of the common parlance, and is often referred to without even mentioning MDHA.
Not only does an effective system carefully manage the demand side of the housing equation; it carefully manages the supply side of the housing equation. When a unit becomes available, it is filled as soon as possible, federal housing dollars are fully utilized, and the supply of housing is grown, by finding units outside of the CoC program.
Sophisticated systems include flexible assistance mechanisms to assist case managers, the linchpin of the system, in housing their clients. In Dallas, the MDHA Flex Fund[iv], founded in partnership with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, gives case managers an important tool to pay for hundreds of minor but impactful expenses, every year, that can help individuals resolve their homelessness, quickly and permanently.
There is simply no better graphic representation of a homeless response system than this one created by the equivalent organization to MDHA in Kansas City, MARC.
All Roads Lead to Housing – The entire system is oriented towards housing as the solution for homelessness, and this approach permeates every component of the system. There is a sense of urgency in getting everyone, and first and foremost those with the greatest needs and vulnerability, into housing, as soon as possible, with as few barriers as possible. In the meantime, individuals, who need it, are offered temporary shelter, with the constant ever-present expectation that they be moved into housing as soon as possible. Since 2015, MDHA has held regular policy discussions, trainings, lunch and learns, boot camps, learning clinics, and roundtables for case managers, program managers, agency leaders, and the public, to reorient every part of the Dallas homeless services ecosystem towards this thinking.
Data Transparency/Data Driven Decision Making – All homeless service providers must practice full transparency, by reporting all data into the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), the federally-mandated community wide database, that drives improvement of homeless services programs, without exception (barring issues of safety). Reporting into HMIS is not simply an issue of bureaucratic compliance. This is the only way we know if and how much progress our community is making. More importantly, this is the only way we can improve and self-correct, where we are not[v].
It is impossible to assess system performance, in the absence of data on this point of entry into homelessness. Therefore, communities that do not have shelter bed data in their HMIS are routinely penalized for it, as Dallas was. However, unlike the housing programs, funded through the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, MDHA cannot simply require shelters to enter their data. MDHA methodically worked with each of the major shelters, to bring them into the system. Though as recently as 2014, 0% of shelter beds were reported into HMIS, by the end of 2017 the percentage rose to 67%. (By the end of 2019, it had reached over 84%.)
[i] http://www.marc.org/Community/Homelessness-Task-Force/Assets/HTF-coordinated-intake-graphic-web.aspx
[ii] http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=dennis_culhane
[iii] Our CoC uses the VI-SPDAT and SPDAT from OrgCode Consulting – www.orgcode.com.
[iv] http://mdhadallas.org/flex-fund/
[v] http://works.bepress.com/dennis_culhane/209/, https://mdhadallas.org/blog/how-hmis-helps-the-individual-person-experiencing-homelessness/
