About Homeless Management Information System

The O‘ahu Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a countywide software program that is designed to capture client-level information over time on the characteristics and service needs of individuals at-risk of and experiencing homelessness. In response to a Congressional directive, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has required all Continuum’s of Care (CoCs) across the country to implement HMIS at the local level.

The primary goal of the HMIS is to better understand the scope and dimensions of homelessness locally and nationally in order to address the problem more effectively. Through the implementation of advanced technology, the HMIS also directly benefits service providers and homeless clients by providing more efficient and coordinated services. The HMIS is a valuable resource because of its capacity to integrate and unduplicate data from all homeless assistance and homelessness prevention programs within the Honolulu CoC. Aggregate HMIS data can be used to understand the size, characteristics, and needs of the homeless population at the local, state, and national levels. The HMIS application enables organizations that operate homeless assistance and homelessness prevention programs to improve case management by collecting information about client needs, goals, and service outcomes.

On O‘ahu, the HMIS is administered by a designated HMIS Lead Organization that receives funding to develop and implement O‘ahu’s HMIS. Since inception in 2004, the HMIS has matured into a complex data collection and reporting tool utilized by homeless service providers across the Island of O‘ahu. O‘ahu’s HMIS enables the sharing of client data, allowing for a greater collaboration among homeless service providers across the island.

*CLICK ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF DASHBOARDS TO ENLARGE OR CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO GUIDE ON “HOW TO NAVIGATE THE INFLOW-OUTFLOW DASHBOARD”

The system flow dashboard here examines enrollment and exit data taken from the Oʻahu Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to identify trends in system engagement throughout the year. Not all individuals in HMIS are currently experiencing homelessness, some are housed. When measuring the success of a system in ending homelessness, we examine whether homelessness in that community is rare, brief, and non-recurring. We can see this goal met when the number of exits to housing exceeds the number of people experiencing homelessness in a given month, when the length of time from the start of a homeless episode to housing is less than 45 days, and when no more than 5% of positive exits result in a return to the homeless system within two years.

The following dashboard consists of data pulled from HMIS for all programs with clients currently enrolled. Each tab shows different metrics. Tab 1 and 2 are dedicated to timeliness and are measured against our CoC standards. Tabs 3 through 6 show data completeness for each agency. The intended use here is to see where the system is as a whole and understand where there is room for improvement. All agencies are encouraged to run routine data quality reports for their programs to see more detailed breakdowns of any issues that need attention. Links to archived dashboards for their respective years are below.