---
id: "workshop:ending-homelessness-together-leveraging-data-and-collaboration-for-lasting-solutions"
type: "InnovateUS workshop"
title: "Ending Homelessness Together: Leveraging Data and Collaboration for Lasting Solutions"
url: "https://innovate-us.org/ending-homelessness-together-leveraging-data-and-collaboration-for-lasting-solutions"
date: "2025-03-11"
duration: "60 minutes"
language: "English"
instructors: ["Adam Ruege","Beth Sandor"]
recording: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IICP56_iKBc"
transcript: "automatic, from the recording"
source: "InnovateUS (innovate-us.org)"
licence: "CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org"
---

# Ending Homelessness Together: Leveraging Data and Collaboration for Lasting Solutions

InnovateUS workshop · 11 March 2025 · 60 minutes

Have you ever wondered how communities across the U.S. can make homelessness rare and brief? Community Solutions, through its Built for Zero initiative, uses data-driven strategies to do just that. By collecting real-time, by-name information, they identify trends, coordinate services, and ensure that the right support reaches those who need it most. This session will explore how data and collaboration can create systemic change in addressing homelessness.

Drawing from practical case studies, like the reduction of veteran homelessness in Chattanooga and the success of functionally ending homelessness in Rockford, we’ll demonstrate how harnessing real-time data and cross-sector partnerships can transform efforts to end homelessness. You’ll see how communities can adapt these principles to meet local needs, resulting in more effective, equitable, and sustainable outcomes.

This workshop is designed for anyone who cares about social impact—whether you’re in policy-making, social services, or community leadership. You’ll learn how data-driven approaches reduce inefficiencies, optimize resources, and improve coordination across sectors, ensuring that every individual experiencing homelessness is seen and supported.

In this 60 minute session, you’ll gain a clear understanding of how to leverage data and collaboration to build a sustainable solution to homelessness, along with insights into addressing ethical concerns around privacy and data sharing. Whether you’re involved in housing, healthcare, or local government, this workshop will equip you with the tools to enhance your community’s performance in tackling homelessness.

## Learning goals

- Understand the Built for Zero model and how real-time data and collaboration can help communities end homelessness

- Explore real-world examples, such as the successes in Rockford, Illinois, and Chattanooga, Tennessee

- Learn best practices for using data to improve efficiency and outcomes in homelessness response

- Address ethical considerations, including privacy, data sharing, and equitable access to resources

## Speakers

- **Adam Ruege**, Director of Strategy and Evaluation, Community Solutions
- **Beth Sandor**, Chief Program Officer, Community Solutions

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IICP56_iKBc

## Transcript

Automatic transcript of the recording: names and terms can be misheard, and the times can be a few seconds off. Each time links to that moment of the video. The transcript alone: https://innovate-us.org/ending-homelessness-together-leveraging-data-and-collaboration-for-lasting-solutions.txt (plain text) and https://innovate-us.org/ending-homelessness-together-leveraging-data-and-collaboration-for-lasting-solutions.json (every segment with its start and end second).

**Beth Sandor**

[0:00](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=0) Thank you so much. We're really, Adam and I are so grateful to be here with all of you and to have this discussion with you. We are going to talk through just an overview of the work, but really hoping we leave lots of time for discussion and questions, because I think that's where the richness is in this. We're going to give you an overview of Built for Zero and how we got started and where we are now and how the role data has played in that. And then also share with you some findings from our third-party evaluator. As part of our investment from MacArthur, we have had the gift of having an incredible partner in ORS Impact run alongside us now for the last three years and for the next two years. And them as our learning partner has really helped us understand the impact of our work in the areas for growth. And so we'd love to share what we're learning from that, as well as what we've been learning in our work. So our organization, as was mentioned, I work for Community Solutions. I'm our chief program officer, but really that just means for the last 10 years, since 2015, I've been leading Built for Zero with our work domestically in the U.S. and then our work internationally.

[1:19](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=79) As an organization, our mission is a lasting end to homelessness that leaves no one behind. And I think it's important to highlight that at the top, as well as kind of the vision we have, where there's a future where homelessness is rare and brief for everyone and it's never a way of life. Those two things for us, those two statements have really centered our work and have been a source of honest self-reflection as we've moved forward in our work and an opportunity to say, do we think we're getting closer to this future? And how do we need to evolve and change our work over time to help continue to move closer to this future? Our journey, our learning journey has been very winding, as many of you doing work on complex social issues can attest to, as we really started to lean in harder to homelessness, not as a technical problem that had a recipe that communities just needed to follow, but really lean into the complexity of the issue and what kind of new skills and new capacities would we need as a sector to really address it.

[2:24](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=144) The journey has felt to me personally, like sometimes we go backwards to go forwards again. Sometimes we're climbing straight uphill and it feels exhausting and not sure if we're headed in the same direction, the right direction. But I think in that kind of failing forward, we have learned so much and we continue to kind of humbly be in that space where I think we've learned a lot, but still have a lot more to learn as we move forward. Our work really started, our organization and the roots of my work have been in housing. So we started as affordable housing developers. We developed lots of permits for housing in New York City. And our mission during that time was the same as it is today, which is the lasting end to homelessness that leaves no one behind. And when we realized that we were seeing our housing end homelessness for the people that were able to access it, but not for individuals that were still sleeping on the street, we got curious about what we needed to do differently.

[3:27](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=207) And so in 2010, we launched an initiative called the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which was an effort to really figure out how to help communities house the individuals that, but for us changing the way our systems work, we're never going to make it through the complexities of the housing process to get off the street or out of shelter into permanent housing. We led this four year campaign with 186 communities nationally, who all agreed to redesign their housing placement processes to work with the most vulnerable individuals in their communities, people in the street, but you'd walk by and think, oh, that person doesn't want housing or never could be successful in housing. To really center that person and their needs as a way to redesign our system to work with the person at the center versus our agencies at the center. And those communities housed over 105,000 chronically homeless individuals, many chronically homeless veterans, folks that were being left behind by the system.

[4:33](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=273) And what we really looked at, the thing we were measuring was how many people were folks placing into housing every month and could they dramatically increase that, especially for vulnerable populations. And what we saw in the overall population, we saw collectively our communities go from housing about 1.5% of the population who are experiencing chronic homelessness to being able to get closer to 5%. We saw like a 286% improvement on average across communities. And we really thought like our hypothesis was that if you could get better and better at housing people, that we would see population level reductions in homelessness, that we would see, especially in chronic homelessness. And at the end of that campaign, despite incredible outcomes and a lot of success and a lot of learning, what we didn't see is any of those communities, that increase in housing placements translate into population reductions. And it feels very obvious now, at the moment, we kind of had this aha moment of like, oh, we should have been measuring, are there fewer people experiencing homelessness?

[5:42](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=342) But the housing placements was one measure that was important, but it wasn't the measure that was going to tell us if all of our programs and all of our investments across a community were adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness. And so when we invited communities to continue on the learning journey with us in 2015, the invitation was, how do we design a system that can move away from only counting up? Counting up is really important. Like, are we spending the dollars? Are we housing more people? Are we getting more services to more people? But all of that counting up actually has to translate into overall reductions in homelessness at the local level and at the national level. And so that was the invitation. We had some hypotheses on what it would take to do that work. But the invitation was, hey, we think this is the next place we need to go. Who wants to come with us on that journey? And I think that's been one of, for me, the greatest things about the work we've done and the network we have is everything I'm going to share with you is not some insight that I had.

[6:47](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=407) It's an insight Community Solutions have. It's what we've learned from the field. It's what the field is learning right now as hundreds and hundreds of communities and hundreds and hundreds of leaders are every day dedicating their work to figuring out how to build systems that can measurably reduce and sustain an end to homelessness. And so that's been the work since 2015 is this challenge of counting down and how do we build these systems? We started with a network of 75 communities. So we invited communities to raise their hand and say, who wants to be accountable for population level reductions in homelessness? With no new resources, we didn't have any money to give at that time. And we were a pretty small, scrappy team. And who wants to learn with us? And luckily, a group of community raised their hand and said, we're willing to go on that journey with you. Over the last 10 years, that network has expanded from 75 to now over 140. I think we're closer to like 145 communities that are participating across the US.

[7:53](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=473) Those communities every day are housing more and more individuals. But the measures they're really looking at and we're looking at are around, are they ending homelessness for one or more populations? Are they seeing measurable reductions? And are they seeing systems changes? Things around the enabling conditions like, are they putting policies in place that clear the path? Are they seeing reductions in inflow? Or are they seeing accelerations in housing placements that would be the first signals that they can get to reductions? So we're looking at a system level, not only at housing placements, but at multiple factors across the system. But in order to do that, the first thing we learned after a lot of trial and tribulation in the first year is that the only way to know if all the programs and investments across the community are adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness is to have real time data on who's experiencing homelessness.

[8:54](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=534) And so that was a real pivot point in our work where we asked those communities that raised their hand, not only to commit to population reductions and to get to an end to homelessness, but we asked them to commit to having monthly data across their community. And at least starting with one population, but working to get to all populations so they could actually measure progress. In addition to the U.S. communities, we also have partners in five countries where we're coaching an entity that looks like we do, that looks like Built for Zero, but they're leading the work. In Australia, that's this group called Advanced to Zero. In Canada, it's called Built for Zero Canada. And those partners collectively have 103 communities, global communities, who are using the same methodologies and approaches and are seeing really incredible progress, including in Canada, where four communities have ended homelessness for at least one population. So the network is large, and I think given that has given us confidence in some pieces of the work where we have seen it be replicated in lots of different contexts.

[10:00](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=600) In addition to communities having quality data, being able to create a chart like you see in front of you, so this is Jacksonville's data on chronically homeless individuals. It's monthly data, so they're saying, we know every single month across a defined geography, usually a county or a multi-county jurisdiction, exactly how many people are experiencing chronic homelessness. We understand the inflows and the outflows and the system dynamics so that we can answer that question. Are all of our programs and investments adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness? And there isn't a community anywhere in the U.S. or globally that is going to be able to end homelessness without line of sight into the problem like this. And I think that's the thing we can say with the most confidence that we have learned, is this problem is so dynamic. It changes so quickly based on a lot of environmental factors, and you need to have data that is as dynamic as the problem itself in order to really be effectively driving strategies.

[11:03](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=663) So this is the shift from program outcomes to system outcomes. Program outcomes are so important. Are these programs actually working for people? But alone, they weren't enough to really know if there are fewer people experiencing homelessness this month than last month. And the reason that is, is the challenges that we have seen across our work is that with homelessness, there isn't one agency or organization that owns an end to homelessness. There's usually multiple organizations who touch the problem or have some of the solutions. And what we have seen over this last 10 years is that in order to really be able to leverage information that you have, like I just showed you on that graph, to move from program shifts to system shifts, you need to have almost a command center approach. We've kind of moved away from some of that language and talked more about an intermediary. Someone who is holding the big red ball for everyone and creating accountability and ensuring all the partners are moving together and holding themselves mutually accountable for reductions in the overall population.

[12:16](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=736) One of the challenges we've seen is also that a definition of success is limited to program outcomes. So most communities are monitoring how their dollars are being spent and if those dollars are resulting in the programmatic outcomes they're paying for. But they're not pulled up to say, is all of that adding up to fewer people experiencing homelessness? And that's a key part of it. And that you'd have to have that individual level data if you're going to be able to make decisions about where resources need to go and to understand what's working and not working. And that homelessness is often seen as a problem of resource scarcity, which it is. We of course need more affordable housing, no doubt. And it is also a problem we have seen of collaboration and coordination as well. And so having data that allows you to make targeted housing investments and allows you really to dial into the leverage points in the system changes the game and community's ability to do this work.

[13:22](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=802) Adam, as Adam shifts to take over here in a couple of slides, he's really going to focus on this piece. We're going to pull out this piece on data. But as we do that, I think sometimes when we focus too much on data, people think that's the end state. Like having good data is the end state. And having good data is just the beginning of being able to drive these reductions. So I wanted to set that in a bigger context. The other really important thing to share with all of you as we move into data is that when we started this work in 2015, the other thing that was missing, in addition to communities having real-time data, was a shared understanding of what it meant. To end homelessness. Everyone was talking about we want to end homelessness. We were saying we want to end homelessness. But we weren't sure did that mean when we end homelessness, no one is experiencing homelessness or never does again. It's a hard zero. Or is it some functional definition that looks at the system working in making homelessness rare and brief.

[14:22](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=862) And given where we are today, I personally think we should aspire to have communities where there is a literal zero. No one ever experiences homelessness. But given some structural inequities and challenges in the external environment, I think for the homeless response system, a critical milestone before we get there is can the system respond in a way that makes an individual's experience of homelessness rare when it happens and very brief when they experience it? And so that's what functional zero. Sometimes I wish we had come up with another name for it. Trying to get underneath is like, how would you objectively measure across context? So when Phoenix, Arizona says, we ended homelessness for veterans, it means the same thing when Montgomery County, Maryland says, we ended homelessness for veterans. We want consistency across context. So there's credibility. Because what you see on this issue, as you all see on many issues is that as soon as someone says they've achieved something hard, lots of people go, yeah, but they didn't do this, or they didn't do that.

[15:30](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=930) We're like, how can we shore up the credibility here by having a shared definition? Maybe imperfect, but it's at least a shared definition that's objectively applicable across context. So the definition you see on your screen is really looking at when you say you reached functional zero, or you reached an end to homelessness, or you made homelessness rare and brief. The number of people experiencing homelessness is less than or equal to how many housing placements every month you've demonstrated you can make. So it's not how many resources are out there in the world. But it's saying if we say we have 10 veterans left on our by name list, only 10 veterans, we've demonstrated over the last six months on average, we can house 10 or more veterans every single month. So we know those veterans coming in are going to get housed really quickly. Their experience is going to be rare and brief because we've already demonstrated our system has the capability and the capacity to house at least 10 veterans every six months, and we've demonstrated that over the last six months.

[16:33](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=993) On chronic homelessness, it's a little bit different because chronic homelessness, as many of you know, is a function of how long an individual has been homeless and their disabilities. And so we should not have systems where people experience homelessness long enough to become chronically homeless. So for that, we really want that to be functionally a zero. We don't want anyone ever experiencing chronic homelessness. And so that's a little bit different than homelessness among youth or families or single adults where we want that to be rare and brief. We just don't want anyone to ever experience chronic homelessness. So we worked with national partners, with our communities to establish this working definition with the knowledge that the good news was we weren't government. We could change it and learn as we went. Like it was easier for us to be nimble. And let's just get started with these as the definitions. And then that quickly led us to if this is the definition, we need monthly data to monitor our progress towards these definitions.

[17:34](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1054) And that's where quality data and the approach to quality data was born out of. And I think as I hand over to Adam, the important thing for me to highlight is, again, the shift to by name real time data was born in collaboration with communities. Like our communities built this with us and have continued to iterate it over the last 10 years. It hasn't been static. We've learned a lot about what it takes to do this and what it takes to scale to other populations. And I'm excited for you to hear that from Adam.

**Adam Ruege**

[18:04](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1084) Great. Thank you, Beth. Thanks for that intro. I've been here for about four years, and I'm always like enthralled by hearing the history of what we've learned. It's community solutions and built for zero work. And I want to just say, as Beth mentioned, this is a foundation. It's not the end state, right? And the one thing we want to be sure, and we work with communities, we make that clear that the data itself is not going to solve the problem. But having the data can help shed light on the problem to lead to solutions to help reduce homelessness. I'd also like to say in the map, if you notice the map, we have over 140 communities that are in the network of the United States. We actually work with communities that are in deep red south to communities in deep blue Pacific Northwest. And the one thing we've learned is that the model that we work with communities on is very apolitical. We've tested it in small communities, large communities, conservative, liberal.

[19:09](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1149) The model seems to be sticking in many places. So it is one that we have seen over the years have evidence of working. It's because it's based on evidence, right? And starting with the data, our vision here, when we work with communities, those 140, more than 140 communities, is that they will be able to use technology. They will be able to use what they have at their disposal to really understand what it takes to drive reductions in homelessness. So the vision is that they have confidence in the data. Now, having perfect data is not real. That's not a thing that happens in almost any industry. But having high confidence that the data that they collect on individuals who are experiencing homelessness is accurate is absolutely key and foundational to the work. Next slide, please. So we work with communities around what we call binding data. And it's this idea of simply thinking about it is that it's a list of everybody experiencing homelessness updated in real time in a community.

[20:10](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1210) And a community being defined as maybe a municipality, maybe it's a county or a grouping of counties, typically at what they call the continuum of care level, which is a HUD-designated geography. And what we've learned is that the HMIS system, and HMIS, the Homeless Management Information System, which is required for communities to use to receive federal funds, is actually able to do this and be able to reconfigure that technical system to be able to produce this binding data set that has that comprehensive list of every person in the community. So what we do is we work either directly with communities, we provide direct coaching and support to communities, or we do it through intermediaries, right? Maybe we do it through states who then work with communities. And time and time again, we're seeing it at work, right? We're seeing the uptake. And as of now, over 80 communities, in fact, have achieved this kind of real-time data standard from small communities, like I said, small communities in the U.S. to large communities.

[21:24](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1284) So we've shown strong proof of concept that this is something that can work. Next slide, please. So, you know, the thing, and I'm not going to read the slide here, but just to give you a sense of the key elements of the coaching that we provide and the support and then what we have learned about what works are these kind of five areas, right? These five elements. One is that, you know, all agencies and programs that are working with people experiencing homelessness are actually collaborating. And we say sharing data, but sharing data is almost like a means to an end here. What we really want and what we've really seen the power is the collaboration. So getting agencies and programs to kind of work together to enter into a shared space leads to not only knowing how the data is working, or how many people experiencing homelessness, but also the collaboration that happens when they all kind of get behind the shared goal.

[22:25](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1345) So full coverage in a whole community, person level data, having information about the person experiencing homelessness that can be shared. And I'll get to, I see there's a question in the chat box around PII. I'll get to that in security and consent. But I think it's really important that we highlight that. The data is regularly updated too. So that, you know, it's updated on a monthly basis at a minimum if possible. And that the status changes as, you know, when we find out that their status changes, and then that's reliable, the data is reliable, and that we have confidence in the data month over month. Security and consent. Now, this is a big concern, right? We know that there's, you know, that there's always risk of collecting PII, or personally identifiable information. So what we do is we do work with communities and making sure that they adhere to the federal, state, and local laws and regulations that permit or prohibit data sharing.

[23:26](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1406) The HMIS system in and of itself actually meets a number of different standards, so that meets security standards. And that, you know, what we know is that we coach communities at the local level to ensure that they have, like, if they require releases of information or other ways that the individuals that are being included in the HMIS system, that they give their consent. Consent is very important in this work. So, you know, we do work with communities to make sure that they adhere with those local laws and regulations. Next slide, please. So with that, you know, we, there's, I mean, this is just a starting point, right? But there are seven key data points that we work with communities to develop based upon this by name data set. And we actually use what's called a systems dynamics model. It's a model that we use an analogy of, like, a bathtub, right? When you think of a bathtub, we have inflow, that's water coming in, or people coming into the homeless system.

[24:29](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1469) We have actively homeless, or that's the bathtub and how filled it is. And outflow is the kind of the drain pipe, people, you know, the water flowing out of the people leaving the system. And so we create this way because that's how we, you know, get a handle on the really complex system dynamics in the community. So we coach communities to these seven key data points related to inflow, who's newly identified, who's coming back from housing, how many are actively homeless, and how many outflow, or like how many of those who are placed in housing, or maybe they age into a different population. For example, a youth, somebody who's 24 turns 25, which means that under the HUD regulations, they're considered an adult. So they no longer meet population criteria. That's a wonky term that we use internally. There's also these that are called moved inactive, where folks, they leave the system. We don't know where they go to, but we keep them kind of on a tracking system to understand if they come back, when they come back.

[25:34](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1534) So there's these seven key data points that we work with communities on. And again, it doesn't matter how big or small community is, they can develop these data points that give them a sense of the system dynamic, right? To understand what's driving increases in homelessness. Is it the increase in inflow, or number of people coming in, or is it maybe decrease in outflow? Maybe there's a housing shortage that creates a backlog. And this isn't the only data that communities collect. There's a wealth of other information at HMIS, but we believe, and what we've learned is, is that for a community to actually see measurable reductions, and eventually end, they have to start here, or they have to be here too. So it's a pretty powerful data, kind of a data model that we use and work with communities on. Next slide, please. So, you know, we have a kind of a set of basic standards, and we're not accrediting bodies or anything like that, but what we do is we actually work with communities to meet these standards, which we make available publicly.

[26:39](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1599) So at the end of the slide deck, you'll find that there's actually links to the standards, the scorecards as we name them. And so for a community to get to kind of this quality data standard, meaning they have confidence in their data, they have to have a good score on their scorecard, and that their reporting is reliable. The next slide, I'll get into the details of what that means here. So this is kind of like what the different elements of our data standards are, right? First one, when you think of a community, they have effective outreach systems, meaning that the homeless outreach, so like unsheltered outreach, these are folks that are living out in the street, that there are outreach workers that are covering the whole area, right? And that it's coordinated, it's not duplicating services. That's a key one, right? And that's especially for our large urban centers, where there may be a lot of unsheltered homelessness, they need to have effective outreach systems.

[27:43](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1663) Provider participation, that the vast majority of providers supporting people experiencing homelessness are actually entering into the system and using the Binaid dataset. That is key. And that is typically our bed-based programs, like our shelters and transitional housing programs that they enter into the dataset. They have policies and procedures that will help sustain that work, right? That they have these different kind of policies that not only establish the requirements or the data work, but also make sure it sustains it for a long time. And then the data infrastructure, and that's the kind of technical piece that we work with communities on to ensure that these different elements are tracked, right? So when a community is able to do all of this and they have confidence in their data, and then they can really start understanding the scope and scale of the problem using that systems dynamics model. Next slide, please.

[28:45](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1725) And seeing it conceptually is one thing. This is a real example of a community, a large community in the U.S. who is working on veterans, right? Working with and reducing and ending veteran homelessness. And as you can see, they know month over month, which is incredible going back to 2016, how many veterans are experiencing homelessness. And in this community, which is like incredible to see, they've actually reduced veteran homelessness by 50%. And I think right now it's even more than that. This community is even more than that. Now, and I'm going to get to the way the federal government, what the federal government requires, which is only a one time a year count. When we start looking at this and what communities have shared with us is that when they can look at it month over month, that really changes the dynamic. I had the opportunity to sit at the table with this community itself that included the mayor's office, a local public housing authority, the local VA collaborating in real time in like understanding what the data was telling them and actually making decisions on policies that needed to be changed.

[30:00](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1800) Based on the data, what it was telling them. So it's really incredible to see that play out, because it's, you know, the data is an enabling tool. It is not the end-all. And when communities can get together, these varied groups get together to try to work on that one goal, we see this kind of success. So in this example, veteran homelessness has been reduced by, you know, over 50% over the last five, six, seven, eight years. Next slide, please. This is another example of another city that went beyond just veteran homelessness, and they want to look at all singles. So all singles means anybody basically who is not in a family or not youth, meaning under the age of 25. So they have a much more comprehensive view on their homelessness system and understand kind of the trends month over month. This again, you know, this is the world that we want to see across any community to be able to see how many people are experiencing homelessness month over month, right?

[31:06](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1866) So we work with, you know, communities on like maybe specific subpopulations like veterans or chronically homeless, but we really do encourage them to look at a system level. What does it look like for your single population or maybe the total system-wide population? This is an example, again, example of a community that tracks the overall single adults month over month. Next slide, please. You know, I mentioned the point in time count earlier, and I just want to, I just, I use this as an example to show what the power of this by name data, this real time data can provide, right? So if you look at the orange, the orange line there, that is the results for veterans. If you look at the left on the one, the graph on the left there, that is the HUD's point in time count results for the last few years, right? And this is the, this is how kind of the federal government kind of gauges success is looking at that one time of year count, which is typically conducted at the end of January, okay?

[32:11](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1931) And every community is required to do it if they receive federal funds. The challenge though, is that, you know, there's only one, two, three, four, five data points. So this is at a national level, but the, on the left there, there's only five data points since 2018 that nationally we can see, you know, to help understand the trajectory of homelessness. What we did is on the right there, that blue line is we actually aggregated all of the data that our communities are reporting. We have like 500 data points, right? So I'm just showcasing this is that, you know, as, as the, the point in time count, which is a yearly one time a year, you know, like I said, one time of year count done in January can be useful to understand long range trends going back to 2007, it's not going to be the way to solve the problem, right? You need to have that real time data and that graph shows the art of the possible, the one on the right, those lines on the right, where actually we can see those trends on a more real time basis.

[33:16](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=1996) So we actually have data on, on, you know, as of like February, 2025 of how many chronically homeless people are experienced, how many people are experiencing chronic homelessness in our network of those 140 communities, and that makes it a powerful data source for us to understand the trajectory of the, of the challenge in the, in the United States. Next slide, please. Beth mentioned earlier that, you know, we have a third party evaluator, ORS impact that has been following along with us since 2021. And it's been such a, such a gift to have a learning and evaluation partner kind of work with us to understand what we're learning, how our model's changing, how, how, how things are improving. And I'm just sharing this as an example of, you know, as a third party evaluator, they came in and actually evaluated some of the, some of the results that we're seeing. And we're seeing based on the coaching work and the support work we do with communities, improvements across the board, right?

[34:20](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=2060) That outreach is becoming more effective, that more providers are actively engaged and involved in the, in the homelessness system, that there are data infrastructures being developed. And so we're, you know, not only are we seeing more communities develop these kind of these data sets, these, so they can understand on a monthly basis, how many people are experiencing homelessness, but they're also seeing improvements in how they're working together. And that's, that's powerful, right? Because again, we're not just about the data here. The data is, is an enabling tool to help with that collaboration, understanding what's happening in communities. Next slide, please. So I just want to share that we have a number of different resources available on our website, community.solutions. We make much of our information available. We are an organization that believes in, in making, you know, sharing what we're learning across the network or across the sector. So, you know, you'll find more information about our, our, our quality data approach about the model.

[35:24](https://youtu.be/IICP56_iKBc?t=2124) You'll see case studies of real life case studies of what communities are doing, not just in the data work, but also in the, the collaboration work. And then, you know, this idea of backbones or intermediaries, we have case studies on that, encourage you to take a, take a closer look at that. We have a number of videos as well, if you want to look at kind of the work that we're doing around data and so forth. So I encourage you to take a look at our resources on our website. I do know that there are some questions coming up in the chat box. So I want to see if we want to answer those before we have a more general Q&A.

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Original page: https://innovate-us.org/ending-homelessness-together-leveraging-data-and-collaboration-for-lasting-solutions · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), as stated on innovate-us.org