Homelessness Response · Data
Fix your HMIS headaches.
HMIS is federally mandated for all HUD CoC and ESG recipients — there is no opt-out. But the mandate and the reality diverge almost immediately. The system was designed for compliance reporting, not operations. Field workers can't open it on a phone. Referrals get lost in email chains. A 2024 City Controller audit found one in four LAHSA shelter beds sat empty while 5,000 people waited — because staff had no way to see real-time availability inside HMIS and were maintaining parallel spreadsheets instead.
The problem
What HMIS can't do that your program depends on.
The operational cost of HMIS's gaps accumulates quietly. Duplicate records pile up because the same individual was entered under slightly different spellings. Referrals disappear into email threads. Grant auditors ask for outcome data that your staff has to hand-assemble from three different sources — a process that takes 10 to 20 hours every quarter. And because nonprofits operating outside HUD funding streams aren't required to use HMIS at all, clients cycle through services without any provider knowing their full history.
- No mobile access — field workers can't use it in the field
- No real-time referral tracking — referrals live in email chains
- Duplicate client records from manual data entry across agencies
- No cross-agency data sharing — clients' full history is invisible
- Compliance reports require hours of manual data assembly each quarter
How we approach this
Connecting the gaps, not replacing what works. These are representative capabilities — scope depends on your existing vendor agreements, CoC data-sharing arrangements, and API access. Discovery comes first.
Mobile intake (offline-capable)
PWA forms that work on any phone, even without cell coverage. Data syncs to HMIS when connectivity returns. Field workers stop writing things down to enter later.
Referral tracking dashboard
Every active referral — who was referred, to which program, on what date, and whether placement was confirmed — in one view, replacing the email chain.
Automated deduplication
Nightly fuzzy matching against your HMIS client records using name, date of birth, and SSN partial. Probable duplicates surface in a staff review queue — never auto-merged.
Bed availability visibility
A coordinator-facing view of shelter inventory status. Note: Bitfocus Clarity's bed inventory API is currently read-only with a 2+ hour lag and has no write access. Real-time sync into LAHSA's module depends on API access that doesn't yet exist publicly. See our shelter bed availability page for the full picture.
Compliance report generator
Quarterly HUD outcome reports pulled directly from HMIS — the same manual process that currently takes 10–20 staff hours, automated. Actual run time depends on data quality and how consistently your HMIS records are maintained.
Cross-agency data pipeline
Structured CSV exports for partners and funders outside the HMIS system — field mappings documented so any future auditor can trace the data lineage. Requires signed data-sharing agreements between participating organizations and CoC approval first; we build the pipeline once those are in place.
Dealing with HMIS pain?
Book a free 30-minute call. Tell me which HMIS problem costs your team the most time and we'll talk through what's actually fixable.
Book a free discovery call