United Way unveils Chatham Housing Collective dashboard as county housing efforts expand

United Way of Chatham County on Monday presented a progress report on the county's 2023 housing strategic plan and demonstrated a new public dashboard designed to track shared housing and homelessness metrics across local service providers.

The dashboard compiles monthly, aggregate data from nonprofit and public providers to show supply, demand and program outcomes, United Way impact manager Daisy Butser told the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. Service providers began reporting metrics in December 2024; United Way contracted consultants to create a sustained, low-cost platform and held stakeholder input sessions to design the dashboard's functionality.

The dashboard, Butser said, includes: an overview of the county's housing supply; rent, mortgage and utility assistance program data; information on street outreach and case management; and metrics on positive exits from street outreach and case management. United Way maintains an English-and-Spanish resource directory that links users to services and McKinney-Vento liaisons; the directory and dashboard are available from United Way's website.

Why it matters: Commissioners and staff said a shared, public data tool should let policymakers, funders and providers track progress and identify gaps as Chatham develops. "At least we now have a starting point," Commissioner Kate Robertson said, noting the dashboard has only been public about 10 days and will require time to show trendlines. Butser told commissioners she expects the dashboard to be refreshed monthly with roughly a two-month lag in published figures.

What United Way described: The Chatham Housing Collective meets quarterly and maintains a weekly provider subcommittee for case-level coordination and referrals. United Way said it receives aggregate data from providers monthly, cleans it and posts it to the dashboard. The site also includes a seeded personal narrative, "Jane's story," to give readers context on who services reach.

United Way outlined recent capacity-building: the county created a Housing and Community Development department and three staff positions; Love Chatham opened a second transitional house; Salvation Army Chatham hired a full-time case manager; and United Way launched the Chatham Success Network pilot to strengthen cross-provider capacity and referrals.

Board response and next steps: Commissioners praised the dashboard and urged United Way and county staff to promote the tool to people who need it most. Commissioner Jonathan Delaney said the dashboard could help avoid "siloed" service delivery by making client progress visible to providers. Butser asked for suggestions on outreach and said United Way will continue to refine metrics and increase stakeholder use. Jason Smith, Chatham County housing director, said staff will determine what additional data the county needs and schedule follow-up briefings as trends become clearer.

Clarifying details: United Way said the dashboard includes data beginning in December 2024; one publicly reported metric, "positive exits" from outreach and case management, was cited as 21 (data still being refreshed). United Way said some program metrics are collected at the provider level to avoid duplicating individuals served across multiple services; the collective is exploring methods to report unique people served while maintaining privacy and security.

Looking ahead: United Way plans ongoing outreach to funders, providers and residents to increase dashboard use and to use its Chatham Success Network pilot to improve wraparound services. Commissioners asked staff and United Way to return with updates once several months of data are available so the board can assess gaps and potential investments.