HUD System Performance Measures

The System Performance Measures are set of HMIS reports that evaluate the homeless services system, and are designed to

Help Continuum of Care (CoC) communities understand how their system is functioning.
Help CoC's determine if they have the right combination of strategies and resources.
Gauge a CoC's progress toward the goal of ending homelessness.

These consist of 7 measures that communities can use to help track their progress toward making homelessness rare, brief, and non-reoccurring. Currently, community progress on these measures is included as a scored component in the CoC Program NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity) competition. All but Measure 4 include clients in HMIS based on program type and regardless of funding.

Measure 1: Length of Time Homelessness:

Metric 1a: This metric uses actual time in Emergency Shelter and Safe Haven (and includes Transitional Housing in part of the metric) to determine the median and average length of stay for clients served during the reporting year.

Metric 1b: This metric builds on Metric 1a, but adds the “Approximate date homelessness started” response to the beginning of each client’s stays before calculating the average and median.

Measure 2: Returns to Homelessness

This measure reports on clients that have returned to homelessness within two years of exiting a permanent housing destination and counts the number of people who re-appear in HMIS in the those two years. It also provides data on returns to homelessness at less than 6months, 6-12 months, 13-24months, and total in 2 years.

Measure 3: Number of Homeless Persons

This measure includes Point in Time Count totals of clients served in Emergency Shelter, Safe Haven, and Transitional Housing (sheltered) as well as Unsheltered clients on the night of the Point-in-Time. It also includes the total unduplicated count of clients served during the reporting year in Emergency Shelter, Safe Haven, and Transitional Housing projects as recorded in HMIS.

Measure 4: Employment and Income Growth

Unlike other measures, this one is limited to only those projects funded through the CoC Program. We look for adult stayers (clients still enrolled, who have been enrolled at least 365 days as of the report end date) who have increased earned income, non-employment income, or total income. We report on the same 3 categories for adult leavers.

Measure 5: First Time Homeless

Metric5a includes clients who entered Emergency Shelter, Safe Haven, or Transitional Housing projects during the reporting year. Clients who did not have an entry in HMIS during the 24 months prior to their entry in the current reporting year are counted as “Newly homeless”. Metric 5b builds on 5a, also including clients entering PH projects during the reporting period.

Measure 7: Metric7a counts successful exits from Street Outreach. This includes exits to permanent destinations and some temporary destinations. (e.g. for Street Outreach, exiting to emergency shelter is considered a positive exit.) Metric 7b1 is the percentage of clients exiting ES, SH, TH, and RRH to permanent housing destinations, as well as clients exiting other permanent housing projects without a housing move-in date. Metric 7b2 looks for retention of permanent housing for clients served in permanent housing projects other than RRH (provided they have a move-in date). Clients still enrolled in the project on the last day of the report period and clients exiting to permanent destinations during the reporting period are counted as successes for this metric. Some destinations result in a client being excluded from this measure entirely (e.g., Deceased).

Resources

HUD System Performance Measures Guide (PDF)

HUD System Performance Measure Programming Specifications (Web)

ICA HUD System Performance Dashboard (Web)