Beginning in the mid-1990s, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) required its grant recipients to provide information about the homeless clients they served. In July 2009, HUD released results of its fourth analysis of HMIS data—the fourth Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR). This CRS report describes the development of HMIS, the results of the four AHARs, and previous attempts to count homeless individuals. HUD is implementing the HMIS initiative through local "Continuums of Care" (CoCs), which acquire and process data from all participating local service providers. Two types of organizations are required to participate in HMIS: those that receive funding through the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program and those that receive Homeless Assistance Grants. 101-625 ) provides housing and supportive services for persons living with HIV/AIDS. HUD's Continuing Role in Collecting Information About Homeless Persons

Even prior to the congressional directive to implement HMIS (described in the next section of this report, " Development of the HMIS Network "), HUD began efforts to collect information about homeless clients served in the communities that receive HUD Homeless Assistance Grants. The 2005 HUD point-in-time count of homeless persons marked the first time that HUD required all CoCs to conduct a count of both sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals, and to do it at a particular time of year. Congress provided further direction to HUD in the HUD Appropriations Act for FY2001 ( P.L. 106-377 ). Congress has continued to allocate funds for homeless data collection in spending bills from FY2002 to FY2009. In an initial report, dated August 2001, HUD stated that it would help CoCs collect homelessness data through four means:
flexibly implementing the new Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) eligible activity under the Supportive Housing Program in the 2001 McKinney-Vento competition; initiating a comprehensive technical assistance program to help local jurisdictions collect unduplicated client-level data by 2004; developing an approach to obtaining meaningful data for an Annual Homeless Assessment Report from a nationally representative sample of jurisdictions; and analyzing the most viable approaches to obtaining homeless client-level reporting. The first aspect is whether a data collection system has been established at the CoC level, and the second is the degree to which homeless service providers within a CoC are participating in the system. From 2005 to 2006, the percentage of CoCs that had decided to implement an HMIS but were still in the planning stages decreased from 20% to 9%, and the percentage that were not yet planning an HMIS dropped from 7% to 1%. Local CoCs may use one central HMIS, into which all service providers input client information. Estimates of the Number of People Who Are Homeless

Since the 1980s, a number of attempts have been made to estimate the total number of homeless persons in the country as well as to describe their characteristics. These include CoC point-in-time counts that take place at least every two years, estimates in the four AHARs using HMIS data, and previous estimates from the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, HUD has released three more AHARs; in the last two, HUD estimated the number of people who were homeless during a 12-month period. For each of the four AHARs, researchers relied on HMIS data collected from a sample of communities during a period of time and used these data to derive national-level estimates of the number of homeless persons.
In 1998, Congress directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to develop a process for collecting data about homeless persons. Together with local communities, HUD began in 2001 to implement a series of Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS). Two categories of federal fund recipients are required to participate in HMIS: organizations that receive grants through the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program and organizations that receive HUD Homeless Assistance Grants. The HOPWA program provides housing and supportive services for persons living with HIV/AIDS, while the Homeless Assistance Grants fund transitional and permanent housing, as well as services, for homeless individuals.
Local jurisdictions called "Continuums of Care" (CoCs)—typically cities, counties, or combinations of both—are the entities that implement HMIS. Homeless service providers in these CoCs collect and store information about homeless individuals they serve, and the information is aggregated in computer systems at the CoC level. The data in these systems are being used by some CoCs to assess client needs and to better direct their services.
Congress initially allocated funds for data collection regarding homeless persons in the FY2001 HUD Appropriations Act (P.L. 106-377), and has continued to allocate funds in all HUD spending bills from FY2002 through FY2009. Local communities can then apply to HUD for available funds that they may use to implement HMIS. The last time that HUD reported to Congress about the progress of HMIS (in 2007), community implementation of the data systems had increased. According to HUD, 91% of local CoCs were implementing HMIS in 2006 (compared to 72% in 2005), meaning that they had established systems into which data are entered. Because more CoCs were implementing HMIS in 2006, the percentage that were only in the planning stage had decreased from 20% in 2005 to approximately 9%. As of 2006, only 1% of CoCs were not yet planning an HMIS (compared to 7% in 2005).
HUD released its fourth analysis of data from a sample of participating HMIS jurisdictions—the fourth Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR)—in July 2009. The fourth AHAR used HMIS data from a sample of 222 communities (compared to 98 in the previous AHAR) to derive a national-level estimate of the number of homeless persons from October 2007 through September 2008. The fourth AHAR is the second report in which HUD used data from an entire 12-month period to estimate the number of people who were homeless (the first and second AHARs used three months and six months, respectively). For the first time, then, an entire year's worth of data can be compared to that from the previous year. In addition to the AHAR estimates using HMIS data, local CoCs conduct point-in-time counts of homeless individuals on one day in January at least every two years. HUD has published these results as part of each AHAR.
This report describes the development of HMIS, reports on the continuing progress of HMIS, summarizes information released in the four AHARs, and describes previous attempts to estimate the number of people who are homeless. It will be updated as events warrant.