About HMIS

The Homeless Missourians Information System (HMIS) is an on-line database system that serves agencies providing shelter, housing and services to homeless people and those at risk of homelessness in the rural counties of Missouri.

Staff

Sandy Wilson
Project Director

John Robertson
Project Coordinator

Missouri Association for Social Welfare
606 East Capitol Avenue
Jefferson City, MO 65101

The goals of the HMIS are to help provider agencies improve their services, to give access to the information necessary for providers to obtain funding for homelessness services, and to improve public policy toward homelessness. The HMIS is in its third year of a three-year startup grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). MASW is the recipient of this grant, and has undertaken to coordinate this project with numerous other agencies throughout the state. MASW had applied to renew the HUD HMIS grant for an additional two years, extending funding for the project through October 2007, which was not funded. MASW requested an extension, which was granted and allowed the project to continue through March 2006. In addition, a one-year renewal contract for April 2006 through March 2007 was filed. Both were granted. For this year's application process, a two-year renewal was submitted. This renewal will continue the project through March 2009.

The HUD grant pays for the establishment of a mandated homeless management information system for the 100 counties that are outside of the state’s urban Continua of Care. Taken together, these counties form what HUD has called the Balance of State Continuum of Care. It is MASW’s goal to have the HMIS link its information with the homelessness data systems used by the other Continua of Care in Missouri, creating a truly statewide network of information identifying the needs of homeless people and better serving them through that information.

The HMIS speeds the intake of clients into the system by allowing for a single set of core information to be shared by other agencies. Agencies that assist persons with strong confidentiality needs, such as domestic violence shelters, can opt to keep their clients’ information invisible to other agencies sharing the database. HMIS allows providers to identify what other types of homeless services individuals and families have access to, and the ability to maintain a record of their needs and their use of services. This helps providers to more efficiently assess the needs of their clients. The HMIS also aids homeless services providers seeking funding by tracking specific data concerning the services they provide and easily generates reports on those services. Such reports are required by many funding agencies such as HUD.

Finally, information collected in the aggregate by the HMIS is creating a clearer and more detailed picture of the needs of homeless people in the state for the first time, and this information can be used to influence public policy in ways that may finally address the problem effectively.

Beyond the scope of the HUD grant, MASW also intends to pursue methods of identifying and measuring the state’s overcrowded/doubled-up population and also the unsheltered homeless population. MASW worked on these issues for years before HUD funded HMIS, beginning in the 80’s with a series of reports on the burgeoning problem of homelessness, conducting five point-in-time censuses of homeless shelters for the Missouri Housing Development Commission in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2001. MASW convened the Missouri Congress to End Homelessness in 1998, which served as the impetus for the current project. A fourth Congress to End Homelessness was held in April 2004.

Updated: 01/07/2008