HMIS Reports

A critical aspect of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, as amended, is a focus on viewing the local homeless response as a coordinated system of homeless assistance options as opposed to homeless assistance programs and funding sources that operate independently in a community. To facilitate this perspective the Act now requires communities to measure their performance as a coordinated system, in addition to analyzing performance by specific projects or project types.

The Act has established a set of selection criteria for HUD to use in awarding CoC funding in section 427 that require CoCs to report to HUD their system-level performance. The intent of these selection criteria are to encourage CoCs, in coordination with ESG Program recipients and all other homeless assistance stakeholders in the community, to regularly measure their progress in meeting the needs of people experiencing homelessness in their community and to report this progress to HUD.

CoC's also play an integral role in Consolidated Plan (Con Plan) jurisdictions’ planning process. They are required to provide the jurisdiction with the information necessary to complete the Con Plan(s) for homeless assistance provided to persons within the CoC’s geographic area that falls within the Con Plan jurisdiction’s geographic area, including data on performance measures. HUD will use the system-level performance information as a competitive element in its annual CoC Program Competition and to gauge the state of the homeless response system nationally.

A critical aspect of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, as amended, is a focus on viewing the local homeless response as a coordinated system of homeless assistance options as opposed to homeless assistance programs and funding sources that operate independently in a community.

The Longitudinal Systems Analysis (LSA) report, produced from a CoC’s Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS) and submitted annually to HUD and  provides HUD and Continuums of Care (CoCs) with critical information about how people experiencing homelessness use their system of care. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires that each Continuum of Care (CoC) perform an annual count of homeless persons who are sheltered in emergency shelter and transitional housing programs on a single night. CoCs must also conduct a count of unsheltered homeless persons. 

Point-in-Time Counts are important to understanding the extent and nature of homelessness in each continua. The number of individuals experiencing homelessness and their characteristics provide insight into the needs of clients as well as looking at trends in homelessness. This kind of information is useful for influencing policy and planning efforts at the local, state, and national levels. 

Programs included in the sheltered PIT Count are Emergency Shelters and Transitional Housing Projects that are dedicated to serving homeless persons. A dedicated project means the project has the primary intent of serving homeless persons, the project verifies homelessness as part of its eligibility determination, and the project's actual clients are primarily homeless.

In addition to the PIT Count, HUD requires that each CoC complete a Housing Inventory Count, which provides a snapshot of all of the beds and units available to house the homeless, or individuals who were homeless at program entry, on the night of the PIT count. The HIC includes a count of all of the persons who were occupying those beds and units on the night of the PIT count.

Programs included in the sheltered PIT Count are programs that are dedicated to serving homeless persons. All projects that participate in the PIT Count must also be included on the HIC. Additionally, the HIC includes permanent housing projects classified as Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), Rapid Re-Housing (RRH), or Other Permanent Housing (OPH).

Wyoming conducted a PIT / HIC count on January 21, 2021.  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an un-sheltered count was not conducted.