Glossary

Case Conferencing: The mechanism for active management of the Priority Pool and for matching households to available housing resources. Hosted weekly by Coordinated Entry for All staff, homeless service providers from the community meet to match households on the Priority Pool to available resources. Households are nominated for resources based on their eligibility and interest, and then tie-breakers are administered as a group in the event that more than one household has been identified for a given resource. 

Continuum of Care (CoC): A Continuum of Care (CoC) is a regional or local planning body that coordinates housing and services funding for homeless families and individuals. 

COVID Prioritization (COPri): The prioritization method used within Seattle/King County to prioritize households who are most disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 for all housing openings. It incorporates factors which lead to increased risk for mortality from or severity of COVID-19 and relies on cross-systems administrative data. 

Deidentified: Households who refused HMIS consent and whose identifying information is not kept in HMIS, frequently related to safety concerns. 

Diversion: A Housing First, person-centered, strengths-based approach to help households identify the choices and solutions that will end their homeless experience with limited interaction with the crisis response system.  

External Fill: Through the external fills process, the housing provider decides who to select for the resource and coordinates their enrollment, move-in, and placement in housing outside of the CE case conferencing process and prioritization. 

Homeless Management Information System (HMIS): HMIS is an information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families as well as persons at risk of homelessness. 

Housing Triage Tool (HTT): The coordinated entry assessment tool used in the Seattle/King County Continuum of Care. It consists of the VI-SPDAT plus supplemental questions about factors such as foster care involvement, unmet medical needs, and interest in identity-based resources. 

Interim Prioritization (IP): Interim Prioritization refers to a past process in Seattle/King County of using and assessing new prioritization formulas, in addition to a household’s VI-SPDAT score, to address noted racial disparities in who is prioritized for CE resources. Interim Prioritization began at the end of 2018 and was retired in October, 2020.

Mobility Transfer: With a mobility transfer request, households currently enrolled in a housing program are prioritized for transfer to another housing program if they experience an imminent safety issue, require a geographic change, have a change in service need, are aging out of their current program with no other housing options, or if their family size changes. 

Priority Pool: The group of households in each population that are prioritized for matches to housing resources. Case conferencing groups will use this pool to match to housing resources. The Priority Pool is sized to match the average number of available resources for each subpopulation within a 60-day period. 

Vulnerability Index: Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (VI-SPDAT): Developed by OrgCode Consulting, an assessment tool administered to individuals and families experiencing homelessness to determine their vulnerability and need of services. Results of the survey can be used to prioritize households for homeless services. It includes questions about a household’s history of homelessness, health and wellness, socialization, and daily functioning. There are separate assessments for Adults, Families, and Transition Age Youth.