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https://www.hudexchange.info/hmis/
Homeless Management Information System
A Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families and persons at risk of homelessness. Each Continuum of Care is responsible for selecting an HMIS software solution that complies with HUD's data collection, management, and reporting standards....
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This means that if you are homeless and you go into a shelter or HUD housing your name and other information about you has been reported and is on some database somewhere originating with your local HUD.
READ MORE AT THE LINK and check out these links on that page:
CoC: Continuum of Care Program
RHSP: Rural Housing Stability Assistance Program
VHPD: Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration Program
AND READ FROM THIS BLOG, which also appears on our side bar!
HOMELESS LAW WORDPRESS - WHERE DOES THE INFORMATION GO AND HOW IS IT USED?
Excerpt:
Every community of homeless service providers, whether it is a city or a county or a region—depending on how homeless services are organized in that area—contracts with a database vendor to create its own HMIS. Then, as a homeless person goes from one agency to the next, he or she does not have to go through the whole exhaustive intake process each time and the provider can see any facts that might help them to best serve the client and make referrals to other entities or new programs that will be relevant to that individual consumer.
You have two ways of protecting your information:
- You can refuse to answer any of the questions that you object to. Refusing to answer will not make you ineligible for the service, but it will mess-up the provider’s records and can compromise its future funding. In the unlikely event that a provider says that you are legally required to answer a particular question if you want the service, you should direct that person to page 11 of the HMIS Data Standards Manual https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/HMIS-Data-Standards-Manual.pdf which specifically says that “client refused is considered a valid response.”
- You can obtain a copy of your database report and tell the provider to remove any items that you do not want to have on record.
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OUR EXPERIENCE IS THAT IF YOU REFUSE TO ANSWER SUCH SURVEYS OR DATA SHEETS they will either not take you into the shelter or they will kick you out of the shelter.
Some of us have lied on these surveys in some effort to have privacy.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-homeless-count-los-angeles-20150112-story.html full story
Three nights and thousands of homeless to be counted on L.A. County's streets
Some Excerpts:
"In teams of two to four, volunteers will walk the streets looking for homeless individuals as well as signs of encampments — a makeshift tent, a vehicle with something covering the windows, maybe an item of clothing. Volunteer counters don't knock on windows or peer under tent flaps. They don't talk to the people they find; they record only what they see. They are trained before they go out and are encouraged to stop if they feel unsafe. In some areas, an undercover law enforcement officer may be assigned to a team....
On the nights of the count, officials will also take a tally of people staying at shelters. And, importantly, they will send professional outreach workers into the streets over several weeks — starting Tuesday — to interview more than 4,000 homeless people and compile demographic data on them...This year, outreach workers will ask a wide range of questions that go well beyond age and ethnicity and include everything from gender identity to disabilities and medical conditions. Homeless people will be asked whether they were victims of domestic violence or whether they've served time in prison. If they're veterans, what wars did they fight in? What government services or benefits do they receive? Have they been denied a shelter bed and if so, why? How did they lose their housing?
n recent years, the count has shown that while the overall number of homeless hasn't changed much — in 2013 the total number counted on the streets and in shelters was 39,463 — there have been significant demographic changes. Family homelessness was down between 2011 and 2013. So was veteran homelessness, apparently thanks to hard work by non-profits, the county and the federal government. When homeless authority officials noticed in the last count that more homeless youths than expected were found in the Antelope Valley and South L.A., they worked on finding service providers with expertise in dealing with young people who could go to those areas.
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YOU MAY NOT WANT TO BE COUNTED, recorded as homeless, because your name will become part of a public record. Maybe, if you aren't asking anyone for any help, or if you've reached out for help and not gotten any, you would rather have your privacy.
ONE THING WE KNOW FOR SURE IS THAT THE COUNT WILL NOT BE ACCURATE. THERE ARE MANY HIDDEN HOMELESS!
BASED ON PREVIOUS COUNTS, LOS ANGELES HAS THE HIGHEST HOMELESS POPULATION IN THE COUNTRY OTHER THAN NEW YORK CITY.
THERE ARE AND HAVE BEEN THOUSANDS WHO WILL NOT GET HELP, DESPITE SUCH COUNTS.
SPECIFICALLY, THEY WILL NOT GET INTO DECENT SHELTERS OR INTO LOW INCOME HOUSING. THERE HASN'T BEEN ENOUGH SHELTERS OR LOW INCOME HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES FOR YEARS HERE so it may not matter how many thousands are (still) on the streets, in vehicles, on sofas, on floors, camping in the mountains, etc.
HOMELESS SINGLE WOMEN WITH CHILDREN have the greatest chance of finding shelter and governmental help.
SINGLE PEOPLE, if not senior citizens, have the WORST CHANCE. Many shelters will not even take single people. And if you are not religious or not Christian, and you don't want to be preached to and "converted" you have very little chance of finding a shelter to take you.
EVEN THE ONES WHO SAY THEY DO NOT DO THIS DO. They take government funds, sponsor Bible Studies, and tend to favor those who are "believers" which to us, is reality, and stinks.
