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Taking Decisive Action to Resolve a Homelessness Crisis
In late 2018, a large homeless encampment appeared suddenly, including families with small children and elderly individuals in acute need of care. Acting quickly, Stanislaus Community System of Care used ClientTrack by CaseWorthy to quickly build a new program specifically for this encampment and helped get everyone sheltered, prioritize and administer needed services, and avert a crisis.
The Stanislaus Community System of Care (CSOC) is an integrated system of care that guides and tracks homeless individuals and families through a comprehensive array of crucial services. Rather than isolated interventions, the CSOC’s multiple services agencies and community partners unite to help people at risk of an experiencing homeless.
But to succeed, CSOC must know the scope of the problem, identify the characteristics of those who find themselves homeless, and understand what is and isn’t working in their community. Solid data enables a community to work confidently towards their goals as they measure outputs, outcomes, and impacts. To this end, CSOC has been using ClientTrack as their Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) since 2005. And when a crisis appeared on the horizon in 2018, ClientTrack empowered them to rise to the occasion.
The Challenge
In September 2018, people experiencing homelessness began to camp in Beard Brook Park in Modesto, CA. Before long, the encampment exploded in growth, reaching nearly 400 individuals, including families with small children. The surprising number of individuals and families in this public space presented a number of challenges that demanded a swift response, including safety and sanitation issues:
- Calls for police and fire service had increased at the park
- Public health concerns emerged related to hygiene and weather
- The group was camping on a slope which was subject to rain runoff
- A number of fire-related and air quality concerns
In early 2019, CSOC used ClientTrack’s configurability to quickly build out an emergency tracking module in response to this crisis.
Acting quickly, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors declared the shelter crisis for unincorporated areas of the county on December 11, 2018. On January 12, CSOC was awarded $7,236,985 in Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP) funding by the State of California.
Answering Crisis with Solutions
Addressing Needed Services
The first step in tackling this crisis was the creation of Emergency Low-barrier Shelter (Modesto Outdoor Emergency Shelter) set up beneath the 9th Street Bridge, just south of Beard Brook Park. The relocation would be supported with 10×10 weatherproof uniformed tents, as well as outreach and engagement services from the County. Further, CSOC provided other services such as showers to address some of the pressing issues facing these individuals, and further ensured access for emergency vehicles.
Next, CSOC needed a way to track, manage, and report on the individuals moving into the tent city and the services provided.
Rapid Resolution
Lynnell Fuller, HMIS admin for CSOC, used the ClientTrack Designer Toolset to quickly build a service-only project that was part of their HMIS. CSOC was able to begin tracking the 377 individuals to ensure that their needs were being met and that those requiring urgent help would receive it. This number included approximately 20 children under the age of seven and another twenty individuals who were over the age of sixty-three. Additionally, they were able to track the 155 dogs and 20 cats living in the tent city.
Beyond solving an immediate health and safety crisis for these individuals, the data gathered gave CSOC valuable insights:
- 205 of the 377 individuals had not previously been tracked by CSOC and had existed off their radar.
- 35% of the individuals living in Bread Book Park had some form of income, with 10% having an income of over $1200 a month.
- 20% of the individuals tracked faced serious legal challenges
- 69% presented with one or more barriers such as mental illness, drug/alcohol, or HIV
Photograph of the Temporary Emergency Low-Barrier Shelter organized by CSOC in Modesto, CA. (AI upscale from original photo.)
Conclusion
The humanitarian and public safety concerns of this encampment crisis highlight key lessons for HMIS and other service providers facing similarly unexpected emergencies:
- Real-time data tracking via ClientTrack proved indispensable in identifying people who had fallen through the cracks and were in desperate need of immediate services, highlighting gaps in outreach.
- ClientTrack’s flexible HMIS modules enabled CSOC to quickly create a program that made it possible to coordinate services delivery amid chaos.
- Powerful data analysis built into the CaseWorthy platform exposed hidden vulnerabilities affecting the people in the encampment that identified additional needs that CSOC could address, including legal issues and substance addiction.
This crisis demanded agility. CaseWorthy’s ClientTrack application, purpose-built for HMIS needs and use cases, empowered CSOC to take swift, data-backed action that transformed an emergency into an opportunity to address critical unmet needs that contributed to the crisis in the first place.
