United Way Will Manage Data System Used To Refer North State Community Members For Housing Services

United Way’s Senior Director of Programs, Kalie Brisbon raises her hand during a July 11 meeting of the NorCal Continuum of Care’s Shasta Advisory Board.

On August 10, the United Way of Northern California (UWNC) officially announced its new role as administrator of the NorCal Continuum of Care’s Coordinated Entry system and Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).

UNWC is a nonprofit that serves nine North State Counties with a primary mission of fighting for the education, income, and health of all residents in the community. The organization will work with Shasta County, which previously managed both HMIS and Coordinated Entry, to completely take over the roles by the end of 2023.

The federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) agency requires regional CoC’s to provide both Coordinated Entry and HMIS services in order to receive funding.

Coordinated Entry is the method by which community members are entered into a region’s crisis response system to connect them with the appropriate urgent rehousing resources. It is meant to help ensure that those with the highest level of need are matched with the correct types of available support as quickly as possible.

HMIS is an information system where client data and information about the programs and services they are being provided, is collected and stored to allow continued assessment of the match between available services and client needs.

According to HUD, these systems both improve needs analysis and establish funding priorities at the local level and inform homeless policy and decision making at the state and federal levels. They’ve been a requirement of the HUD Continuum of Care Program since 2009.

To facilitate the new role, United Way will be hiring staff, applying for funding, and working with Shasta County on system and data transfers before fully assuming the HMIS lead role in January of 2024, according to Kalie Brisbon, Senior Director of Programs at UWNC.

“I am excited about the opportunity to listen to our unhoused community members and HMIS intake partners to improve the intake process,” Brisbon said in the UWNC press release. “We look forward to system improvement to serve our community members better and will advocate for efficiency with non-profit and social service capacity in mind.”

The change in management of the HMIS and Coordinated Entry system is just one part of recent changes to how the NorCal Continuum of Care will operate after Shasta County announced its withdrawal as “lead agency” of the NorCal CoC, which collaborates to provide services to unsheltered residents across seven North State counties.

UWNC quickly voiced its willingness to take over the HMIS lead role after Shasta County announced its relinquishment of the role. Senior Director of Programs Kalie Brisbon, who has also served on the Continuum of Care Boards in previous years, presented a scope of work and budget to the CoC Executive Board on July 24 and 31.

The annual budget proposed by United Way, is just over $200,000 with an additional one-time transitional budget of around $120,000. The County has not provided the United Way, or Shasta Scout, with information about how much the role cost the County to administer. But Brisbon said during a public presentation to the Board on July 31 that the County has indicated her budget for the project is less than what the County spent to do it.

In response to a request for comment about what system improvements UWNC has in mind, Brisbon explained that they will work to improve the system both for clients and service providers. “We will be analyzing the process for opportunities to lessen the burden on those completing the intake and assessment. Through interviews with current HMIS licensees, we will hear firsthand of the challenges and concerns from users.”

Their methods for listening to unhoused community members, Brisbon said, will include working with community partners and fellow HMIS licensees to connect with willing unhoused community members. She offered the example of United Way’s previous collaboration with Pathways to Housing which included a commitment to receiving feedback from community members before opening the joint micro shelter program. She said the United Way will also ask micro shelter community members about their experience in the HMIS intake and assessment processes as a means of learning.

HMIS and Coordinated Entry are only two of numerous roles Shasta County currently holds as NorCal CoC lead agency. On August 15, Redding’s Council voted to allow the City to pick up another of those roles and become the NorCal CoC’s new interim Collaborative Applicant, responsible for preparing a coordinated application for annual HUD funding. 

There are still several significant lead agency responsibilities which Shasta County currently administers that the NorCal CoC needs to find new administrative management for, before Shasta County withdraws from the role on August 21.

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