In May 2019, Outreach Grid was selected by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Human Services to take part in the CivTechSA Residency, a 16-week residency co-hosted by Geekdom and the Office of Innovation, to assist the department in providing tools for street outreach workers.

To learn more about the state of homelessness in San Antonio and cater Outreach Grid’s tools to the community’s unique challenges, I made a visit to the Alamo City to shadow outreach workers between June 20 to June 25. With the generous aid and time of the City of San Antonio, I had the opportunity to understand not just the structures of information collection and communication but also how they do it empathetically.

This blog is the third of a three-part series that chronicles my experiences in the field with our San Antonio partners.

Day 5, Afternoon (Follow up on locations visited by City)

After a quick lunch, I met up with Rex and Alba from SAMMinistries. I learned more from Rex and Alba about how outreach is done among the city and its partners. -

• Every Friday, the City sends a team to clean up encampments visited during the previous week.
• On Monday and Tuesday, Nancy goes out with the Haven team and visits locations to offer services.
• On Wednesday and Thursday, the SAMMinistries team visits those same locations. Because there are so many more locations, the SAMMinistries team does outreach outside of those two days at other locations.

They hope by coordinating efforts that they can move toward a system that allows all outreach teams to cover more ground.

Today, we were in search of two particular individuals, Mrs. C and her husband. We traveled to their encampment, an area also on private property, unused and owned by a developer. The SAMMinistries team visits this area often, and there are multiple camps in this area, hidden among the trees in the overgrown lots around several big box stores like Best Buy.

When we first arrive, we find their tent, but we could not find Mrs. C. Rex and Alba explain that they might be in another part of the woods in this area and walk in a little further but then decide to head back to the truck to drive around to the other end of the dense vegetation.

As we are driving, we notice a woman walking along the road. What is most disconcerting is we can see clearly from inside the vehicle that the woman has cuts or lesions on both of her legs, and they look severely infected. We decide to stop and check in with her. She tells us her name is Y, and she lives with her husband and kids on the other side of the city. She tells us that she often comes to this area to collect cans, which is one of her family’s sole means of income. We ask her about her injuries, and she says that she has had them for quite a long time, nearly a year, and that she was bitten by a dog in the woods. She had been seen previously by a doctor, but she now no longer has health insurance.

Alba and Rex try to get in contact with Dr. B, a street medicine doctor who may be able to provide Y with some relief. Dr. B lets them know that he’ll come visit her tomorrow. He offers to visit her home, but she says to visit her here in this area, on the streets, instead. Rex gives Dr. B his approximate location over the phone, and sends some pictures of her wound via text. Alba notes how it would be helpful if they had a way to immediately notify Dr. B of this patient and her location, and to see when he follows up with her how things go.

As we are speaking to Y, an officer on patrol passes by and a group of young men enter the wooded area where the encampments are located. Rex decides it might be best to move on — if the officers return to the area, or if the city comes to clean the encampments, he is concerned that the people staying there may lose trust in the SAMMinistries team.

We continue to look for Mrs. C on the streets and find her at an intersection under the shade of a tree. We found her making lovely trinkets using the long grass from the vegetation around her camp. Her husband isn’t with her, but she is accompanied by their companion Mr. T. No one is quite sure what Mr. T’s relationship is to Mr. and Mrs. C, but that he is almost always with them and that he rarely speaks with outreach workers when they come to visit. Mrs. C is gradually losing her eyesight, and the SAMMinistries team is working to quickly get her help and eventually off the streets.

Alba spends almost an hour with her, checking in and getting updates on her children, who live in the area as well. Mrs. C is proud: her youngest has recently graduated high school and she was able to watch them walk across the stage; another of her children has a job at a local department store; and another, who she was worried about because she didn’t know their location or how they were doing, has been found in a detention center up north. She is happy to know that her children are all safe at the very least. While Alba is with Mrs. C, Rex is surprisingly approached by Mr. T. He wants services! He reveals to Rex that he is feeling ill, both mentally and physically, and he is concerned that with the higher temperatures coming with the summer that his health will get worse. Rex is going to pass along this info to Dr. B, as well as look into some resources that might be available for this client at Haven.

Well into the late afternoon, we return to the SAMMinistiries office, but even on the way both Alba and Rex get calls from other clients who need help. One particular client is a mother who has just been displaced from her home this afternoon and is looking for immediate shelter. Rex calls a contact who knows of other opportunities in the area, like churches and community programs, that might have room or offer donations for short term hotel or housing rentals. No leads turn up, and he informs the woman that she may find assistance at Haven for the night.

I ended the day at Church Under the Bridge (CUB). CUB provides evening worship services for those experiencing homelessness every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6pm. Before service, street outreach service providers provide assistance to the congregation’s members, including distributing hygiene and food packs, as well as assistance with signing up for Coordinated Entry.

I met up with Chuck from Roy Maas Youth Alternatives to learn more about this organization and how they hope Outreach Grid can assist them with street outreach. He explained that, when doing outreach, he is mostly focused on building connections and trust, while also listening for a few vocal qualifiers that will help him assist the youth that he encounters. Some of these qualifiers include

• household consistency questions like how long they’ve been on the streets
• whether they have any children accompanying them
• whether the individual has been a victim of a crime, and they type of crime that was committed against them.

He is hoping for a tool that helps workers facilitate these vocal qualifiers as it can help determine other avenues of services and care available to clients. He also reiterated determining the commonly needed resources for the community, including services like ID Recovery and Healthcare Assistance.

We thank the city’s partners for their time and generosity during this trip, and for sharing their stories and challenges with us! After the week, the main takeaways and unique challenges of outreach workers are:

• The challenge of handling individuals who refuse services
• How information currently live in different places and aren’t shared with each other
• How outdoor conditions make paper intakes and referrals very difficult
• How information is sourced from different community members and followed up upon
• How relations are built over time and how to track each encounter made

We have incorporated our learnings to build a uniquely configured Outreach Grid Network for the City of San Antonio that is now live among outreach workers, service providers, and law enforcement officials in the Bexar County area.

Outreach Grid’s tools assist with data collection and coordination of services to those who are experiencing homelessness, from first contact to housing! If you’d like to learn more about how Outreach Grid can empower outreach workers and service providers in your community, visit us at outreachgrid.com!

Reaching Out with Outreach Grid: A Week with Street Outreach Workers in the City of San Antonio… was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In May 2019, Outreach Grid was selected by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Human Services to take part in the CivTechSA Residency, a 16-week residency co-hosted by Geekdom to assist the department in providing tools for street outreach workers.

To learn more about the state of homelessness in San Antonio and cater Outreach Grid’s tools to the community’s unique challenges, I made a visit to the Alamo City to shadow outreach workers between June 20 to June 25. With the generous aid and time of the City of San Antonio, I had the opportunity to understand not just the structures of information collection and communication but also how they do it empathetically.

This blog is the second of a three-part series that chronicles my experiences in the field with our San Antonio partners.

Day 4: In-Field Experience (Encounters and Outdoor Conditions)

The following Monday was a stormy day, and I joined Brittney and Rex from the SAMMinistries team on an outreach. We visited an encampment on the edge of a local golf course under a city overpass. Despite the stormy weather, we encountered several people at this encampment. At a glance, I observed 3 men and 4 women, but I learned that these numbers are constantly changing.

We specifically set out to meet a woman named G, who, in her meeting with Brittney last week, had needed immediate care. G suffers from a health condition in which she often experiences seizures. During her visit with the SAMMinistries team the week prior, she suddenly began seizing and had to be transported to the hospital. G currently has a bad infection, which requires her arm to be in a cast with a drainage tube.

Brittney expressed concerned with the suddenly chilly weather and the effect it may have on G. G was originally supposed to have a doctor’s appointment this day, but, because of the weather and lack of transportation, she has rescheduled to the next day. Brittney wants to make sure she has transportation, so Brittney tries to coordinate with G and Dr. B, a local doctor, who leads the Street Medicine team, another partner of the City of San Antonio. She is unable to get a hold of Dr. B on a first try but makes the call again a few minutes later. G and Dr. B make plans to meet the next day, and he’ll be able to drop her off to her appointment.

While I observed Brittney with G, Rex checked in with the other people at the encampment. He has trouble logging into HMIS on his phone, possibly because of the weather, but he has with him a stack of paper enrollment forms. It turns out he doesn’t need them, two of the individuals have already completed coordinated entry assessments, and none of the others express interest in enrolling in services.

Because of the weather, we end outreach a little early, and we head back to the SAMMinistries office. Back at the office, Rex makes updates to the HMIS profiles of the clients he encountered at the site.

He also shares with me his hopes for Outreach Grid in his community. He mentions wanting a tool that would allow him:

• to collect information in times like today where the weather or distance might result in him being offline
• to create referral for patients to Dr. B
• to have better coordination of care through referrals to other organizations.
• to quickly and efficiently add people into the coordinated entry system without the need to use paper packets in the field

Day 5: In-Field Experience (Sources of Information & Building Relations for Services)

Morning (tips via council member emails, development owners)

I began Tuesday morning on an outreach with Ron from Haven for Hope and Nancy, a special projects manager with the City of San Antonio. During this morning outreach, we came across some unique challenges to the homeless in San Antonio:

• the challenge of finding and navigating to encampments based on email referrals from outside parties
• the challenge of collecting and telling stories of clients’ reluctance and concerns over receiving services/going into shelters
• the challenge of sharing this information with other teams to coordinate care

On our way to our first location, Nancy informs me that the area was referred to her via email by a community stakeholder who had contacted a local councilman. The area we were visiting was private property, and Nancy informed me that many individuals in the city are now searching for private property and camping out there. Because it is private property, it presents some barriers for law enforcement and officials to go into these areas and reach anyone who might be camping there. Some people trespass onto private property, but other ask permission from property owners, conflating some rules and ordinances. Nancy is hoping to get the word out to dispel some of these rumors, and to hopefully re-engage people to seek shelter services.

Before we exit the vehicle, Ron uses the location sharing feature on his tablet to drop a pin of our current location. Nancy, as well as a few other colleagues at Haven and the City receive these coordinates, but not any members of the other teams. Nancy is happy to know that, with Outreach Grid, they can share these locations with other organizations and service providers, as well as see the locations visited by other teams, and get a clearer picture of how close these locations are to one another and how often each location is visited.

As we begin to approach the the edge of the encampment, we meet an individual known as H. We ask her if it would be ok if we visit the camp and offer services to the other campers. She agrees and guides us through the woods and across a small stream to a set of tents and tarps, surrounded by clothing lines and drying laundry.

At the camp, we meet two other women, K and D. We learn that all three women have significant others and that the encampment is mainly composed of couples. H and K also let us know that they have received permission from the property owner to be there, reinforcing the suspicion that Nancy had voiced when we first arrived at the property. She tries to explain to them that there are rules and ordinances that prevent them from staying on the property, and encourage them to seek help at shelters and eventual housing.

The women are hesitant to do so and explain some of their hesitations related to options for couples and issues around belongings:

• There are no options for unmarried couples — both at the shelter and in eventual housing. K explains that she’d be separated from her partner, and they are unable to sleep through the night without each other. She becomes very anxious when she has slept without him, and her partner has had seizures in his sleep before. She worries that if he is separated from her, that he will suffer from a seizure, and no one around will know what to do or be able assist him. She recalls a recent health-related death at a local shelter.
• H shares her own fears of going back to shelters, referring to her own experience at a recent shelter as “hell”. She describes an incident where her personal belongings were thrown away by staff after she had to be medically evacuated from the facility. Many of the items included mementos that cannot be replaced, including a jacket given to her by her father and pictures of her children.

Nancy and Ron are particularly troubled by stories of her experience at a local shelter. They want a way to record these stories. As much good work is being done in San Antonio to assist those who are experiencing homelessness, they are aware that there also ways that the system can be improved, and hope that they can present these stories to the City Council.

We continued on to the next location, but, similar to our last spot, we had a little trouble finding exactly where the suggested encampment was located. Based on previous outreaches and our current relative location, Ron had an idea about the location we were looking for. We stopped behind a local car wash and went into a wooded area where we found two individuals resting inside a small wooden shed. Nancy and Ron offer them services, but they declined.

Following more tips emailed to Nancy from council members and area stakeholders, we visited two other locations. The first area was a difficult to locate. The email leading us to the location gave us very little to go off of, using the hundred block system on a major city street (ex. the 3100 block of Main Street) and describing a drainage ditch where individuals were known to be camping. Without the exact location, we drove up and down the thoroughfare trying to find the possible encampment. Eventually, Nancy tried calling an officer with the City’s SAFFE team. The San Antonio Fear-Free Environment Officers often respond to calls regarding encampments and homeless individuals. The officer was unsure of the exact location Nancy was referring to but did recall an area in the opposite direction of the street down which we were exploring. He described the area and gave us a marker to look out for — a large tree facing the road.

When we finally arrived at the area, we didn’t find any people or any traces of an encampment. There had been storm and heavy rains the day before, causing flooding in some areas, and we could tell the water level had risen in these particular aqueducts. We left unsure of whether the location had been visited previously and had already been cleaned up, or if the rains had forced people to leave the area.

The last location was behind a large shopping center of department stores. Nancy informed me that this location had been referred by the development owner. There were sheds and power supply areas behind the loading docks that individuals were breaking into. We visited the area carefully, noting broken locks on the shed door and disposed needles in the shed. We continued to take a deeper look further into the fields and woods and discover an encampment there as well. There appeared to be traces of a large fire, and we notice an empty ATM machine at the entrance. We don’t encounter any individuals at this location, but Ron and Nancy decide to put this one off for the day and to return at a later date with SAPD.

Our story with the City of San Antonio doesn’t end here! Learn more about how the city and its partners combat homelessness in their community, by reading the next part of the blog!

Want to learn more about how Outreach Grid can help empower your community? Sign up for a demo at outreachgrid.com!

Reaching Out with Outreach Grid: A Week with Street Outreach Workers in the City of San Antonio… was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reporting an Incident

Using the iOS app, field users can report incidents of potential encampments, and assist individuals that they encounter in connecting to the service pathway by reaching out to service providers on their Outreach Grid Network!

Field users can use the app to log the locations of encampments and record encounters with clients, helping clients document their story of homelessness and their length of time experiencing homelessness. Users can also submit Incidents — a short report of individuals or locations who may require more immediate assistance or connection to services.

After recording the incident, users are able to chat in real-time with service providers and outreach workers to quickly connect the client to the service pathway.

The field user app also allows users to view a list of their activities and messages with other workers, as well as access turn-by-turn directions to incident locations in order to respond and reach out to clients in need!

Dispatching Services

Dispatch managers have access to the Incident Dispatch dashboard. From here, administrators can assign outreach workers and case managers from their agency to particular incidents that have been reported in the system.

Dispatch Managers can use the table on the dashboard to sort the reported incidents by type, time of the incident and who it was created by, as well as monitor the status of and response to incidents assigned to their team members.

Using the chat features, the Dispatch Manager is able to reach out to both the reporting and responding users about the details of the incident and the progress of its response!

Responding to an Incident

Outreach workers and service providers with an Outreach Grid user account can log on to their network to view incidents that have been recorded and any that may have been assigned to them.

Using the incidents features they can claim an incident, and chat with the user who reported the incident, as well as with any other members from the network who can help!

Users are able to update the status of the incident as they begin locating the individual or encampment, and once the incident has been addressed, users are able to mark the incident as closed.

Users are also able to associate client encounters and incidents from field users with clients who have registered on the network, assisting case managers in building their clients cases and further assisting individuals on their journey out of homelessness.

To learn more about our iOS app for Field Users and our additional dispatch and communications tools, sign up for a demo on outreachgrid.com today!

Introducing the new Outreach Grid Field User app for iOS! was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In May 2019, Outreach Grid was selected by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Human Services to take part in the CivTechSA Residency, a 16-week residency co-hosted by Geekdom to assist the department in providing tools for street outreach workers.

To learn more about the state of homelessness in San Antonio and cater Outreach Grid’s tools to the community’s unique challenges, I made a visit to the Alamo City to shadow outreach workers from June 20 to June 25. With the generous aid and time of the City of San Antonio, I had the opportunity to understand not just the structures of information collection and communication but also how they do it empathetically. This blog series chronicles my experiences in the field with our San Antonio partners.

Day 1: Information Architecture

To combat the rising occurrence of encampments in the city, the City has partnered with many local nonprofits and service agencies. These partners include street medicine providers, behavioral health specialists, youth and LGBTQ+ advocates, social services organizations, and local law enforcement.

My visit began with a small forum with outreach workers from the City and these various partners. A total of eight organizations and their outreach teams came together to discuss the key to ending homelessness: how to foster interagency collaboration. We kicked off the meeting by reviewing their current structures of information collection and communication: examining the tools they currently use in the field, the type of information and data they currently collect about homelessness in San Antonio and those who are experiencing homelessness, and how that information is communicated to each other.

Day 2: In-Field Experience (Handling Refusal of Services)

The following day, I had the opportunity to do outreach with a COSA partner, Centro San Antonio — a program that provides assistance to downtown visitors, conducts beautification projects downtown, and assists those who are experiencing homelessness in the streets of downtown. My guides from Centro SA, Valerie and Elizabeth, took me out to Travis Park, a downtown hotspot for many clients.

I saw in real-time how referrals are made and how refusals are handled:

• Valerie had received a call about an individual there who had previously refused services. Valerie was hoping that with the help of Elizabeth that she might reconsider seeking help from Haven.
• We found the individual at the south end of Travis Park, across from the St. Anthony Hotel. Valerie informed me that many local businesses including St. Anthony often refer Centro and Haven to clients in the park.
• Valerie approached the woman first, introducing Elizabeth, before joining me a distance away down the block. She seemed to open up a little to Elizabeth — Valerie noted that this is the longest amount of time that she had spoken to an outreach worker, as she usually declines their advances.
• When Elizabeth re-joined us, we learned that she still wasn’t ready to seek assistance.

I learned that this refusal of assistance happens often. They take it in stride: meeting individuals where they are at and waiting until they are ready. I ask Valerie if she had an idea of how many times a client might refuse services before seeking help. She says that that is something that they haven’t measured, but does note that, while each client is different, it does take several encounters for most clients to begin the pathway towards shelter and housing.

Friday evening closed on a hopeful and inspiring note: I had the opportunity to visit the Haven campus on the “Members” side. Haven partners with the Center for Health Care Services to provide a program for members known as “ITP” or the Integrated Treatment Program. Frequently, the program invites speakers who have exited the program to tell their stories about their recovery and life during and after Haven for Hope. The speaker’s story was inspirational — embodying for us the success and goal that Outreach Grid and the City and its partners are working toward in the fight to end homelessness.

Day 3: In-Field experience (Silos of Information)

Saturday afternoon, I shadowed Krista and Heidi, two public school teachers who volunteer on the weekends with Stand Up for Kids, a nonprofit organization working to ending the cycle of youth homelessness here in San Antonio. I met Krista and Heidi at a local library branch to conduct a inreach. On the weekends, they bring supplies, including food packs, hygiene kits, and bus passes to give to homeless youths (particularly those aged 18–25). Over two hours, fourteen young adults came by to visit the two women — some of them stopping to give hugs or update the volunteers on their new jobs or housing prospects, and some stopped by just to say hi and get a snack.

At times, Heidi might make a note of a youth’s name if she knew it, though, for the most part, both volunteers focused their encounters on listening and engaging with their visitors. I asked if there was a place where they marked their encounters or store any information about their visitors. At the end of the afternoon, they shared with me a Google form that they sometimes use to note an individual’s

• name
• age
• whether they’ve encountered the client at the library for outreach or at other locations

but that this information may not be available for other outreach teams and they have no way of knowing if any other teams follow up with their clients.

My day with Heidi and Krista may have ended here, but this was only the start of my journey to understand the issue of homelessness in San Antonio. You can read more about my experiences with the city and and its partners in the next installment of Reaching Out with Outreach Grid!

These in-field experiences are invaluable for us to build tools empathetically and to configure a Network successfully. Let us visit your community by signing up at outreachgrid.com!

Reaching Out with Outreach Grid: A Week with Street Outreach Workers in the City of San Antonio… was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today we’re highlighting super-partner, Rachel Amerson! Rachel is a Community Health Worker for JPS Care Connections, a street medicine team practicing in the Tarrant County area of Texas.

What is your secret origin story? How did you get into the field of ending homelessness?

I actually just kind of fell into it! I had been in school for a really long time because I had changed my major, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I finally landed in health, getting my degree in Health Studies with an emphasis in Community Health. When I finished school, I was looking for a job and I found a position called Community Health Worker on Indeed. I thought, “that sounds a lot like what I studied,” so I applied and came in for an interview with the Care Connections team. During the interview, I found that I really liked everyone on the team and thought that work that they are doing is really cool, so when they offered me a job, I accepted it.

Tell us a little more about your organization.

The JPS Care Connections team provides health care services to people who live outside. Our work is so impactful because it Is literally about meeting people where they’re at, which really helps break down a lot of barriers. Many people who live outside are often unable to access services because they don’t want to leave their belongings or their pets, or they’re more focused on where they’re going to sleep at night or what they are going to eat. This makes it difficult for them to make appointments or come all the way across town for services. Bringing medicine to the streets helps open up access to care.

Also, a lot of what we do is more social than physical health care, like navigating people through services and educating people about services that are available. It’s about empowering people so that they can get the help they need.

What are your superpowers?

I think for our team, I would say finding people. We have clients say to us all the time, “I know you’ll find me!” at whatever camp site or location, so they feel like they can rely on us to follow up.

Can you tell us a story of how your team has helped someone lately?

We had one guy who had recently just gotten out of the hospital. His condition qualified him for home health care services, but because he was staying outside, the home care team was unable to reach him and provide those services to him. Our Care Connections team was able to go out and provide that care for him.

How does collaboration assist you in the fight to end homelessness?

Our team primarily focuses on the health care aspect, we don’t offer housing services. So the biggest way we collaborate is by connecting clients with our partners that can help get people into housing. Everything we do on the streets is a temporary fix, but getting them to a stable, permanent living situation is the top priority, and referring them to our partners through Outreach Grid helps with that.

What is the best part about teaming up with Outreach Grid?

For me it is really helpful because I am really bad with directions! Being able to have all the location information there on the computer where I can just click and get directions to camps and clients is really helpful!

And then to also be able to get that information to other people. Sometimes other team members or partners ask, “How can I get to this person?”, so to be able to easily relay who needs help and where are they is super helpful.

We all know our shared nemesis is homelessness, but what do you wish more people who work outside of this field knew about homelessness, it’s causes, and its lasting effects?

I know that people know this, but I want to remind people to put it into action — People experiencing homelessness are people. Their needs, their wants, their desires, and everything else are just as complex and meaningful and important as anyone else’s.

Who(or what) inspires you?

I would say my niece. Right now, she is 8-years old, so she’s soaking up all sorts of new information, and she’s at the stage where she wants to learn a lot and do a lot. She inspires me to do the right thing so that I can be a good influence.

She’s also very curious and always asking, “Why? Why? Why?”, so she encourages me to think critically about the things I do and why I do them.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

The connections that I am able to make with people. People call sometimes just to check in, to let us know what’s going on in their lives, and how we make a difference.

What message would you like to give to someone who may currently be experiencing homelessness?

That there are people out there who really do care and are trying to make a difference.

If your team had an animal sidekick, what would it be?

We’ve always said that our mascot would be a honey badger!

If you could have any superpower what would it be and how would you use it to fight homelessness?

I’ve always said that if I had a super power that it would be flying because that would be really fun! With our team, we often say we should get drones, so that we could send them out to find locations and see if clients were there. Sometimes we waste time and resources going to locations only to find that people aren’t there anymore, so I could use my superpower to keep up with where people are at when we need to see them!

Do you have a superhero in your community that Outreach Grid should spotlight? Share their story with the Outreach Grid team at hello@outreachgrid.com!

Want to learn more about Outreach Grid and the tools we can provide to help empower your team? Sign up for a demo at outreachgrid.com today!

Superhero Spotlight! An Interview with Rachel Amerson was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every year, on a night during the last week of January, Continuums of Care across the nation take part in the Point in Time Count. The purpose of the count is to provide an unduplicated count of sheltered and unsheltered homeless populations, and to better understand the composition of homeless populations in each community. The Point in Time Count is a means of collecting data on homelessness and tracking progress among CoCs, but it can also be a great way to help foster community connections.

Inviting volunteers to join the unsheltered count efforts helps ensure that CoCs are able to cover more ground and find and identify as many unsheltered individuals as possible. The Point in Time Count also provides an excellent opportunity to bridge the volunteer gap, allowing volunteers to better understand the issue of unsheltered homelessness, and to discover new ways to join their community in the fight to end homelessness.

Assisting in a PIT Count can be a daunting task for both new and old volunteers. Here are some ways to help volunteers navigate their way through count night and to also optimize data collection during your count.

Host a pre-count night! Whether you host your event in the hours before count or days before, carve out some time to remind your volunteers why we count and to train your volunteers on counting methods.

Count Together! Implement teams for your Point in Time Count so that volunteers can count together. Working alone on the night of the count can be intimidating for some volunteers. Use the buddy system to alleviate any count night jitters. Invite outreach workers and homeless liaison officers to lead teams of volunteers on count night, and to share their stories and experiences working day to day to end homelessness.

Implement an observational survey tool! Whether you use HUD’s Observational Tool or develop an assessment that better meets the needs of your volunteers and homeless community, it is essential to have a survey option that allows volunteers to collect basic information for homeless individuals who may not wish to or have the ability to complete a full interview.

Use a mobile application! Implementing a mobile application for your count can help streamline data collection and leverage that data for future use. A mobile app helps volunteers collect data quickly and accurately, while providing a centralized platform for data reporting and analysis.

Here’s what makes Outreach Grid’s Point in Time Count Contributor App unique:

Offline Mode — In our offline mode, volunteers can continue to conduct surveys and gather location information, even in the most remote of locations.

Command Center — Manage your volunteers in real-time, monitoring survey and location submissions. Administrators can view data live as it is being collected by volunteers, and contact and provide feedback to volunteers throughout the night.

Volunteer Smart Assignment — Use the app to group volunteers into teams, and assign outreach workers and law enforcement officers as team leads. Pre-load maps for count night and assign specific count routes to your volunteers.

Location Aware Insights — With the full range of Outreach Grid’s tools, you can leverage your PIT Count data by making it easily available for street outreach workers to follow-up with potential clients and track possible encampments.

Data Analysis and Reporting — We work with you to prepare your data for submission to the HUD Exchange and assist you with building reports for your community stakeholders. Outreach Grid is there for you, count night and beyond!

Want to learn more about Outreach Grid and how we can help you with your Point in Time Count? Visit us at outreachgrid.com and schedule a demo with us today!

Planning the PIT Count? A mobile app can help manage data and your volunteers during your count was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Are you considering a Coordinated Entry System but concerned about funding and how to compose it in your NOFA applications? Let us help!

At the Continuum of Care (CoC) level, we can assist in addressing questions about the implementation of a system like Outreach Grid and how we can contribute to your Coordinated Entry Process. Here’s how Outreach Grid can help you identify, engage, and assist homeless individuals:

IDENTIFY — Uses collaborative location mapping and data collection to allow outreach workers to quickly identify those who are homeless or at-risk of experiencing homelessness. Users and contributors are able to record locations of individuals and camps, and to conduct assessments on site, in the streets. Service workers and housing assessors are notified immediately of the needs of these individuals, and if needed now have a known location where they can follow up with clients.

ENGAGE — Service and housing workers can meet with homeless individuals where they are, bridging the gap of trust and lowering barriers, like transportation and access, to housing and services. Outreach Grid also allows clients to self-engage with the coordinated entry system with our applicants feature. The platform also supports engagement from community stakeholders, such as citizens and law enforcement, by allowing them to report the location of encampments and those who may be homeless or at-risk of experiencing homelessness.

ASSIST — Outreach Grid allows service workers to perform collaborative outreach to more effectively assist homeless individuals. Homeless individuals are quickly provided entry into the coordinated entry process and quickly referred to services and recommended for housing that matches their needs and qualifications.

If you are completing an application for a Supportive Services Only — Coordinated Entry project, we can help you envision how Outreach Grid can meet the scope, timeline, and budget of your project. We can also breakdown what advertising strategies and referral processes would look like for your project.

SCOPE — Outreach Grid provides a centralized platform that allows service workers to collect and store client and camp information and to provide referrals for individuals to services. This platform also engages community stakeholders by allowing them to contribute information that will assist in identifying and engaging homeless individuals and households, and connecting those at risk to proper housing and services. The platform also allows those experiencing homelessness, particularly those that are unsheltered and in need of immediate assistance, to self-identify and quickly connect to aid. It supports a system where access points are virtual and accessible 24/7 from anywhere.

SCHEDULE- Implementation of Outreach Grid begins with a pilot, where the Outreach Grid team works directly with partnering agencies to determine system needs and to develop a plan and workflow for the platform. At the end of the pilot, Outreach Grid works intensively with your organizations to evaluate system performance in relation to your timeline, and to implement solutions for success.

ADVERTISING — Outreach Grid works with your CoC to come up with a comprehensive advertisement strategy to connect those who are experiencing homelessness with service and housing opportunities by connecting them through the Outreach Grid network. We canvas and network with outreach workers and those who are homeless to find out communication flows and gathering points for those experiencing homelessness and those at risk. We then employ methods like flyers at service locations and public transportation centers, and community engagement activities at libraries and community centers.

REFERRALS — Outreach workers, equipped with laptops, tablets, or their cellular devices, are able to engage those living on the streets and collect encampment and client data. They are also able to perform assessments using the Outreach Grid platform, and those assessments are evaluated and scored in real-time, and messaging is communicated to appropriate services and housing programs.
Those in need are also able to access the system by registering as an applicant. By completing a customizable form, the applicant is referred to services agencies who can complete the coordinated assessment process.
Community members are also able to contribute to the system by reporting via Outreach Grid locations of camps or at-risk individuals, so that participating agencies are able to conduct more targeted and comprehensive outreach.


Want to learn more? Feel free to reach out to us at support@outreachgrid.com!

NOFA and Outreach Grid was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With limited time, volunteer resources, and general manpower, conducting an effective Point in Time count is crucial under such demanding conditions. Traditionally, agencies armed volunteers with pencils and paper surveys and assigned them to regions in their jurisdiction. Recently, more CoCs and organizations doing a census of their homeless populations have turned to using mobile applications to conduct their PIT counts.

Get a jumpstart on planning your PIT count to maximize the time and manpower you have! Here are some tips for organizing an effective PIT count:

Volunteers

• Recruit volunteers early and often.
• Manage your volunteer counters with Smart Assignment, a tool in Outreach Grid
• Use legacy information about regions in your city or county to assign the appropriate number of volunteers to canvas popular areas
• Track how long each survey typically takes to continuously improve your PIT count for the following year

Surveys

• Keep them simple! The simpler the survey, the cleaner the data.
• Include GIS information to specify exactly where the survey took place for future follow-up
• Use HUD model survey templates as a jumping point for creating your surveys: Model Sheltered Night of Count PIT Survey (PDF), Model Observation-based Unsheltered Night of Count PIT Survey (PDF), Model Interview-based Unsheltered Night of the Count PIT Survey (PDF), Model Service-based PIT Survey (PDF), PIT Count Youth Survey — Comprehensive (PDF), PIT Count Youth Survey — Addendum (PDF)

Data Management

• Where possible, use digital forms to reduce time and prevent double entry/human errors in data.

Outreach Grid’s Point in Time Count Mobile Application provides all the tools to manage your volunteers and track GIS and survey data for your PIT count. Our mapping features capture spatial and temporal information about encampments and encounters, enabling CoCs to improve resource allocation, dispatch service workers, and develop their program and Consolidated Plan.

Outreach Grid’s Point in Time Count Mobile App comes bundled with the main platform for all of our partners and streamlines the collection of data from first contact to housing. It is also available separately to all government and non-profit agencies to use! With customizable surveys, workers and volunteers are able to quickly gather more comprehensive data that is not only easily available for analysis and submission to HUD but also facilitates the connection of the homeless to needed services.

Our platform is built from the ground up with CoCs in mind and completely mobile — available on the web, iOS, and Android systems. All of the data is stored in real-time and processed into a report when you need it!

• Visit us at https://outreachgrid.com
• If your local agency or CoC is using Outreach Grid to conduct a PIT count, and you would like to volunteer, download our mobile app for iOS and Android!

Conducting an Effective Point-In-Time Count with a Mobile App was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The History
As part of the updated Continuum of Care 2.0 program in 2013, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development issued a new requirement for each continuum of care to implement a centralized, coordinated assessment system.

Prior to the implementation of this rule, those experiencing homelessness often had to wade the murky waters of seeking services themselves — finding lists of housing opportunities, investigating the types of services available, and visiting each of these separate agencies, only to be turned away because of requirements or demands that they were unaware of. Coordinated Assessment Systems made access to services actually ACCESSIBLE, but there was still room for improvement in the implementation of these systems.

The coordinated assessment system would simplify the process for obtaining assistance by allowing individuals and households experiencing homelessness to go any designated access point to complete one comprehensive, standardized assessment that would appropriately issue referrals for them for housing and supportive services across the CoC.

In January 2017, HUD issued a notice which established new, additional requirements for Continuums of Care and their Coordinated Assessment Systems, now more commonly known as “Coordinated Entry Systems”, requiring every CoC to establish or update a CES in accordance with these new requirements by January 23, 2018.

These additional requirements highlighted the need of continuums of care to focus on the coordination of entry, the standardization of assessments, as well as the accessibility, availability and safety of the system to those who are seeking housing and services in efforts to create a system that is client centered and places their needs first. The notice included 15 additional requirements for CES, but they focus on achieving three major goals:

Coordination — A Comprehensive, Standardized Assessment.

Every agency and access point throughout the entire Continuum of Care, including street outreach, emergency, and homelessness prevention services, is mandated to implement a single standardized assessment approach that collects necessary information to establish an individual’s or household’s needs in regards housing and supportive services. The scoring of this assessment must accurately and appropriately prioritize the referral of clients to services. Is is not required for a list to be generated through this prioritization process, but if one is, it must match that used by the CoC’s Homeless Management Information System(HMIS). This process should be transparent and made public by the Continuum of Care.

Accessibility — A System for All

The expansion of requirements for Coordinated Entry included new rules to ensure adherence to the Fair Housing Act and to prevent all forms of discrimination. The coordinated entry process must prohibit the elimination of referrals of persons to services based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, familial status, disability, actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. CoCs are required to take action to provide assistance to those with disabilities as well as those with Limited English Proficiency. All shelters, housing projects, and service agencies are also prohibited from denying service to anyone due to any perceived conceptions that would prevent persons from receiving or maintaining housing or services, like income or credit, substance abuse, criminal record, or history of domestic violence.

Access Points — “No Wrong Door”

Access points are to be found throughout the entire CoC, and every access point should provide the same type of access — same access to assessments and same access to services. A person should not have to travel long distances or be bounced from location to location in order to seek assistance. Every access point should serve as an entry into the CoC’s system of care, and every point must be well-advertised and easy to find.

Looking for a Comprehensive Solution for Continuum of Cares

Until now, many CoCs have chosen to implement Coordinated Entry Systems by establishing series of complicated community workflows that simply stack on top of their existing HMIS systems. These systems often fail to truly capture the intent of true coordination, instead consisting of agencies within the CoCs implementing their own processes and surveys and then each agency retrofitting their systems to meet the needs of CES. But what if a Coordinated Entry System wasn’t just pages of processes that include a tool for assessment? What if a CES is a tool that meets the all the mandates of coordinated entry?

Outreach Grid is a collaborative software platform that provides powerful, coordinated entry for homelessness management and is accessible by anyone, anywhere. The first of its kind and battle-tested in California and Texas, Outreach Grid is a coordinated entry system that easily adaptable to the needs of any Continuum of Care — collecting information from first contact to housing. With built-in features like customizable assessments, controlled data and information sharing, encounter and encampment mapping, and HMIS data compliance, we enable agencies to end homelessness together. Best of all, Outreach Grid removes all barriers for entry into the system for those who are most vulnerable. With Outreach Grid, any mobile devices within your Continuum of Care becomes an access point in one consolidated platform:

• Outreach navigators and emergency shelters become mobile access points who can enter and use information in the field on their mobile phones and tablets
• Private citizens and businesses can contribute to the network by reporting encampments and individuals to the Outreach Grid Network of service agencies who can help them
• Individuals experiencing homelessness or about to experience homelessness can self-report their needs to the Network

Visit outreachgrid.com today to schedule a demo and see how Outreach Grid help end homelessness in your city!

What Is A Coordinated Entry System? was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In any city, tackling homelessness is a multi-agency effort. There are the law enforcement officers who respond to calls about encampments; the food pantry and soup kitchen coordinators who serve people facing homelessness; the social service outreach workers who meet with their clients in the office and at encampments. Every city has its own unique set of passionate people who work to get people facing homelessness the help that they need to get by.

As a result, the map of how a client gets to permanent housing is deeply individual.

Mapping success stories and knowing what works, however, is not an easy task because the data is spread across paper, databases, and agencies. Homelessness crosses city and county lines, and different agencies have different systems of managing information. Assembling information among agencies to map out what worked and what didn’t is invaluable but shouldn’t take weeks to collect and put together data in order to understand the state of homelessness in a city. On top of that, it’s a vital tool and resource to develop new strategies for future clients and for a city to grow and attune to its homeless population.

A city’s new power tool

Outreach Grid brings all the city’s data on homelessness to the table. It was built from the ground up to be used from the top down. We worked with social workers and law enforcement officers alike to create a full-service platform that enables coordinated entry of clients, workflow management and collaboration, and selective information sharing among different agencies, including city management, law enforcement, and social services.

We built this from the ground up to be used from the top down.

Camp & Location Mapping and Management
Track the history of camp locations and outreach efforts. Easily identify trends of camp openings, closings, and re-openings across your city. Outreach Grid records paths via GPS to map out walking paths that are safe for workers to traverse for hard-to-reach camps.

Custom Surveys
Every agency will want to know something different about their clients. We import your intake forms to easy-to-input forms in the app.

Data Sharing
Information collected can be restricted and shared among agencies based on custom data-sharing agreements.

Information System for Coordinated Entry and Continuum of Care
Understand the complete picture of homeless and transient individuals of where they have been encountered and track the progression of their services over time. With data sharing, this information can be updated by multiple agencies to create a real-time pulse on homelessness in the city.

Reports and Workflow Management
Easily record work done for camps and clients across multiple agencies by updating a task and tagging other outreach workers or employees from another agency. Reports on aggregate data can be generated with just a click of a button.

On-the-Field Use
Outreach Grid is a mobile-responsive app that you can take with you on the field on your phone or tablet.

Take control over your city’s homelessness data

Interested in learning more about how Outreach Grid can work for your city? Have any questions or specific topics you would like for me to cover?

Reach out to us at team@outreachgrid.com

Read more about how we helped West Sacramento tackle their homelessness issue!

Combatting Homelessness with Collaboration and Information Sharing was originally published in Outreach Grid on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.