View a brief video about the use of the CA-529 HMIS Wiki here.

The Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a computerized data collection application that facilitates the collection of information about homeless individuals and families using residential or other homeless assistance services and stores that data in an electronic format. CA-529, Continuum of Care in Lake County, CA uses Social Social Solutions Group Apricot 360.

Congress has directed the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to assist local jurisdictions to implement HMIS and use data from these systems to understand the size and characteristics of the homeless population nationally and locally, analyze patterns of service usage, assess unmet needs, and evaluate effectiveness in reducing and ending homelessness.

HUD publishes the HMIS Data and Technical Standards for implementing HMIS. These standards are reviewed by HUD and the Federal Partner Programs. The latest version of these standards can be found at https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/hmis/. The standards require the collection of Universal Data Elements, Program Specific Data Elements, and Project Descriptor Data Elements. These data are intended to identify the number of people who are homeless and accessing services from homeless providers as well as basic demographic characteristics of people who are homeless.