About HMIS

Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a local data collection system required for all communities receiving federal funds for serving individuals and families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Every HMIS must meet HUD and the federal partner’s requirements, including the ability to measure homelessness and the effectiveness of a community’s homeless response system. It serves as the primary reporting tool, ensuring compliance and accountability for funded projects and the ability to measure their effectiveness. On a broader level, HMIS generates aggregate data across all our entire system, to track performance, show trends, and help inform planning. Required HUD reports include the Longitudinal Systems Analysis (LSA) report, System Performance Measures, and the Point in Time (PIT) Count. 

Cambridge HMIS plays an essential role in our Coordinated Entry system, where maintaining a single client record in one secure database is necessary for the coordination of services between partner agencies. The deduplication of client records in HMIS also helps us provide a comprehensive documented timeline of a client’s homelessness to verify eligibility for certain housing programs.

Data Standards

HMIS Data Standards exist in order to establish precise and consistent data collection for information collected by homeless service providers. This allows for standardized reporting across projects, agencies and regions, for tracking persons served and other information that is helpful to inform planning and policy in addressing homelessness.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) collaborated with other Federal programs in their release of the most recent (FY 2022) HMIS Data Standards. Projects in Cambridge HMIS primarily represent those funded under HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) and Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) programs.

If you enter data into HMIS, some of the data entry elements you see are specific to your program type (i.e. ESG, CoC), its funding component (i.e. Emergency Shelter, Homeless Prevention) and other classifications. All projects, regardless of program or funding type, are required to collect the HMIS Universal Data Elements:

  • Name

  • Social Security Number

  • Date of Birth

  • Race

  • Ethnicity

  • Gender

  • Veteran Status

  • Disabling Condition

  • Residence Prior to Project Entry

  • Project Start Date

  • Project Exit Date

  • Destination

  • Relationship to Head of Household

  • Housing Move-In Date

  • Prior Living Situation