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State expands homelessness data system and sets numeric goals for prevention and housing outcomes
Summary
The California Interagency Council on Homelessness and HCD outlined improvements to HDIS (the statewide homelessness data warehouse), new dashboards, and the first statewide action-plan goals — including a prevention goal tied to foster care and reentry populations.
Officials from the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) and the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) told the Senate subcommittee on May 20 that the state has built the Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS) to centralize Continuum of Care (CoC) data and is publishing new dashboards and standardized performance measures.
Megan Marshall, executive officer of Cal ICH, and Sydney Bennett, Cal ICH’s director of research, described HDIS as a statewide warehouse that aggregates HMIS (local Homeless Management Information System) client- and project-level data from California’s 44 CoCs. Marshall said HDIS now underpins the state’s action plan goals, and Bennett said HDIS includes more than 300 data fields and feeds interactive dashboards for state agencies and local partners.
Why it matters: Cal ICH officials said HDIS allows the state to track statewide trends, measure outcomes for 14 state-funded homelessness programs under AB 977, and publish California System Performance Measures. They also announced the state’s first numeric goals for an interagency action plan — including goals to reduce unsheltered homelessness, increase exits to permanent housing, reduce returns to homelessness and scale prevention efforts targeted at foster-care exits, reentry from incarceration and state hospitals.
Limitations noted: Officials cautioned that point-in-time counts are a bellwether and that HMIS/HDIS do not capture people who do not interact with formal services. Cal ICH said it is working to integrate other state datasets (welfare, corrections, health) so the prevention goal can be measured against people leaving state systems who may be at high risk of homelessness.
Data quality and compliance: Marshall said HDIS reporting is quarterly plus a three-month validation window. Cal ICH has introduced a front-end data-quality checker, technical assistance and an AB 977 dashboard for department-level compliance. Bennett said the state is publishing system performance measures publicly and will provide tools to help agencies identify underreporting by grantees.
Ending note: Cal ICH and HCD officials told the subcommittee the state is in a better position to measure and compare programs than in prior years but that continued investment, data integration and technical assistance are necessary to turn data into reliable accountability and policy choices.
