Balance of State Continuum of Care

Balance of State Continuum of Care Meeting, January 9, 2024

Transcript of video:

I saw your message Melissa but I know if Mandy you had anything you wanted to start with before we jumped

in think I saw her somewhere um I don't I

mean good okay all right I'm going to share my

screen

just make that a little bit bigger like the actual slide there perfect thank you okay so hopefully everyone can hear me I

know Melissa was having some technical difficulties with her sound um but we're

here today to do the 2024 hmis and nonhis W time training I think most of

you probably know who we are but I am Robin meloff um and I'm accompanied by

my partner in crimes Tina Walker we both work for the institute commun for Community alliances uh we are the hmis

uh system administrators for the state of of New Hampshire so we are the ones who are managing the hmis here in New

Hampshire uh we work across all three cc's in the state um we're the ones who

are always bugging you about your data and running reports and we submit all of those things to um to the federal

government to HUD uh so that's kind of what we do um we help with the point in time training every year uh this is kind

of a two-part training we're going to talk about uh both hmis and who enters into hmis and that process and what it

looks like and then also the non hmis agencies so those agencies that do not have access to hmis they don't have

anyone other agency entering into that system so 202 2024 point in time count

our agenda today um is uh that first we're going to go over a little bit of a background pit

information we might have some people on the call today who have never participated in the app point in time before so we're just going to give a

little background about what it is and why we do do it and when do we do it um

then we're going to talk about uh the those agencies that do enter into hmis and the sheltered count what that

process looks like um what the timeline for the reporting is going to look like and then we're going to take a look at

the actual uh reports themselves and kind of go through what they're going to look like what sort of Errors you should

be looking out for how we're going to get those reports confirmed um and then we're going to talk about non hmis and

the unsheltered count so we're going to do a timeline for that as well we're going to talk about the type of people

who were making sure to count for the point in time and then the people who we want to make sure we're not including in

the point in time um how that data is kind of collected for agencies that do not enter into hmis um and then we're

going to talk about the paper survey and the Google forms uh for non

hmis and we just wanted to mention that um we're going to stop every now and then for questions so if you could avoid

putting them in the chat um just because it will be difficult for us to respond in the chat and we will be

responding verbally once we stop um we have we'll stop in between every few slides we'll just let you unmute

yourselves and you can ask any questions as we go we also have Mandy on the call too

hopefully Melissa will be here at some point if like here if she's here already but Mandy can jump in and answer some questions for us too if they go beyond

uh our skill set of data

so a little bit of background on the point in time the point in time is an annual count and Survey of both

unsheltered and sheltered homeless persons and it's conducted on one single night every single year in the month of

January every Community Nationwide participates in this count and it's categorized by three program types which

is emergency shelter transitional housing and safy so again um we have those two project types we have the

sheltered which are agencies um with the above programs that will count individual individuals that are

physically staying in a bed and then the unsheltered are agencies who are going to count individuals who are sleeping in

places not fit for human habitation and we'll talk about that a little bit more as we go through this

Paro so when do we conduct from point in time hopefully everybody knows what the point in time date is at this point but

uh the night of Wednesday January 24th 2024 is going to be our point in time

for New Hampshire you can collect the data for up to seven days after uh the point in time but we always just want to

be making sure that we're asking where did you sleep on the night of January 24th

2024 uh because we're collecting data for that single point in time we want to make sure that that's even if it's two

three four days later we want to know where were you on on this night we have

a

I think somebody un oh okay ionna say Melissa I think you muted me I unmuted myself I should be good um so uh

important to be asking people where did they sleep um on the night of January 25 um only clients who are physically in a

bed or who were unsheltered on January 24th 2024 those are the clients that

we're going to be counting for this point in time

do does anyone have any questions before we get into the nitty-gritty of the point in

time Al

righty so first up we're going to be talking about the shelter couch um and these are for hmis agencies so hmis data

is used for all agencies that enter their shelter their transitional housing or their safe haven data into our New

Hampshire hmis um IC is going to pull the reports for you and send them with

an email we do this every year so uh agencies who have been around for a while and who've been participating in this um it's the same email that we send

every year it kind of breaks down um this is what we're expecting of you your report is attached here's things to look

for and then we usually uh link you to our knowledge base which has uh more

Pitt and hit resource guides on it for you uh if you need that so that's going to be sent to you January 2th which is

the day after the point in time um please pay attention to the timeline and due dates we're going to go through them

in this PowerPoint but they're also on our knowledge base they've also been announced in the hmis newsletter that we

send out twice a month we do understand that the timeline might seem a little tight as far as making sure all your

clients are in there making sure the data is correct getting a confirmed point in time report uh but we also have

to finish our work so that we can submit that to HUD uh so we just want to make sure that we're kind of keeping with the

timelines as close as we possibly can and then again yeah can I interrupt you

for one minute um can everyone please make sure that you're muted um and if you have a

question you can raise your hand um and ICA will be checking for questions throughout the presentation as they

stated thank you thanks Christie

um so again be on the lookout for emails and newsletters from a um both are going

to contain important information we are always squawking about the newsletter because not a lot of people read it even

though we have all of our most important information in there so especially at this time of year you want to make sure you're keeping an eye out for that

newsletter because it's going to have important information in it again keeping an eye out for emails with your

PO uh your point in time reports we might need to go back and forth a couple of times to say oh we still see that

this is missing you still have some things that you need to work on can you look again and we'll send it again and confirm sometimes it's a little bit of a

back and forth so you just want to make sure that you're watching out for those emails uh just to make sure that we're getting those reports in when we need

them to be

in uh so here's that timeline that we talked about uh Thursday January 25th

again that is the day that we're going to be sending out all of your hmis pit reports to you Thursday February 1st a

week later all of your data needs to be entered into hmis so this is kind of when that back and forth process happens

of um you know maybe sending us a report and asking if it looks good or adding

clients or taking out clients that don't need to be there or fixing data that's kind of going to be that week between

when you're getting sent your report and when all of your data really needs to be entered into hmis and then a week after

that that's when we need the confirmed and accurate uh pit reports so that'll be Thursday February 8th 24 that's when

those reports need to be done to us confirmed everything's accurate and good to go any questions on the

timeline uh the timeline again is going to be in the newsletter and it is also on our knowledge base so if you forget

and you need to look back it's you'll have various places where you can go back and find it and feel free to always email us at the help desk if you have

questions as well um so diving into your pit reports

you may see some errors or some missing data when you're reviewing your pit report um we're in a much better system

this year um and we were last year too so we saw a lot less of this which was nice because the system kind of forces

you to not make mistakes um but there still may be some things that you need to to go through what we find a lot of

times is we send the pit reports and people don't even look at them and they just say yep it's good to go and then we

have to email you back and say well you're actually missing this data you actually don't have or is this really

the accurate amount of client and then we have to go back and forth so making sure that you're kind of taking the pit

report when we give it to you and actually going through it and reviewing it to make sure there's no missing data

um there's not going to be anything um highlighted on the report for you we're going to pull up a report so you can see

it we've highlighted some things that you know might be missing but we're not going to give you a report that's highlighted with a bunch of missing data

that's your job um for your agency to kind of review that and see what's missing and see if it's accurate so um

again check that there's data in each cell of the um Excel that we're going to give you if not it could mean that you

do have missing data on your program enrollment um or you could have missing data on your client profile um but keep

in mind that children do not need to have data for things like veteran status or domestic violence so if you see

missing data in those categories for children that's okay that's supposed to be missing um but if you see any other

missing data and your program enrollment you those are things that you'll need to

address um so households households is one of the things that we've seen in this new system that is not the most

intuitive um it's not always easy to add people together to go back and add them

if we have new people being enrolled later on um it's the thing that people

struggle with the most so we wanted to make sure that we just went over that all household members um must exist in

Clarity before you're able to add them into uh the households and the enrollment when when you're creating

that enrollment you want to make sure that all of the appropriate house me members are included in the enrollment

um and then ensure that you're enrolling the household in the correct program so

for things like if a head of household exits the program before the rest of the household you have to make sure that

you're going back into that file and changing the head of household from the

person who left to whoever is going to be the head of household now that's another thing that we've seen a lot where people are not going back and

switching it to be the correct head of household and then you get the error where there's no head of household and

then that's going to reflect on your appoint and time for um a child only household means that the child is not in

the same enrollment as the head of household we've seen that happen a lot where you know a four or five-year-old

is being the head of household because they're not being added into the enrollment appropriately with the actual

head of household um the only time that that's appropriate to see is if there is if you're a youth program who is allowed

to serve child only households otherwise we would not expect to see a 5-year-old being the head of

households any questions on that households are a little tough so I just want to make sure that everybody

understands that we need to to be adding them in

correctly it's also I just wanted to quickly mention it's something that um

for you to also realize how many households you have because when we send the report the the families are together

but they aren't kind of clumped as a household so if you serve adult and children they won't be um it's not

separated out it just says a list of people so you have to know how many people should be in your program and how

many households on the night of the pit

and we'll see that a little bit more shtin is going to pull up their report we're going to take a look at it so we can kind of show you what that looks

like all righty so uh now we're going to move on to sheltered count non hmis

agencies um so who to count um here is where we're going to count sheltered

people who are experiencing homelessness this is um as defined by Hud physically

in a bed at an emergency shelter or a safe haven or a transitional housing uh

designated for people who are homeless uh in a motel uh paid for by state funds

or in a motel paid for by a charitable

organization those are the people we're going to and Mandy feel free to jump in at any point in time if you want to add

more information to any of these because I know there's some confusion about sheltered and unsheltered and non- hmis

and hmis there's a lot going on there so if there's any questions yeah we really

want to clarify that HUD captures sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on the night of the point in time and

within those categories we have agencies who enter into hmis and we have agencies who don't enter into hmis so as you're

listening to this presentation just be mindful about kind of where you fit in based on your own agency so Robin

reviewed the hmis sheltered count in previous slides and now if you are a

program or an agency that has either emergency shelter transitional housing

um and you're not entering a hmis these slides would be for you these are how you would then submit surveys um to

collect the data so still sheltered but not

hmis um so uh agencies with emergency shelter transitional housing Safe Haven programs who do not enter into hmis as

Mandy just said um we'll need to survey people staying in their program on the night of the pit

to gather that data for HUD so you're still going to be gathering the data just like we would gather the the data

in hmis um but we're not using hmis for that um so it's it's entered and

submitted uh with Google forms and paper forms um and we're gonna we're going to

talk about those a little bit later in this presentation but it is also important to note that all the data on the survey is required to be collected

so an hmis it's a little bit easier because we can at I can say you didn't collect this data you you have to go

back and and put in the data we want to remind you too that even for the paper surveys the Google forms all of that

data is required to be collected HUD does not allow for any missing data for the point in time so for example if you

missing someone's race um and the client refuses to give it to or you're not you just didn't get it for some reason uh we

have to then reach out to the COC leads and we have to have a conversation with them about what we're going to label the

what we're going to put this what category we're going to put this person into because um unfortunately HUD is not

going to allow us to submit anything to them with any kind of missing data on it so that's important to note for both

hmis and nons okay so this is the unsheltered

both hmis and non hmis

agencies so the timeline for this is going to look exactly like the timeline for the

hmis the dates are the same um it's just that how you're doing it is a little bit different so Thursday January 25th day

after the point in time that's where we're going to start collecting data um and we can start entering uh you can

start using those paper forms again we're going to review those a little bit further um and then you can start entering into the Google forms as soon

as as January 25th uh the next Thursday following Thursday February 1 that's

when all data should be collected and ready uh to be into the Google form so if you haven't um entered any of your

data into the Google forms yet that's when you want to make sure that all of that data is in there and ready to go

and then by Thursday February 8th all data should be entered into the Google forms because what's going to happen is

um IC is going to work with the cooc leads and we're going to take all of the hmis data and all the non- hmis data

we're going to compile that together we're going to try to go through and duplicate things make sure that it's as

accurate as we possibly can um and then we're going to take all of that compiled data and we're going to send that to HUD

um as the final submission for the point in time um so again that's why this timeline is a little tight because we

have work to do um at the end of the data collection to make sure that we're getting it all compiled together and

sent on time any questions for that timeline so

is exactly the same as the hmis data St shouldn't be too conf

using all right so uh for who to count we're

counting people who are literally homeless under Hud's definition HUD has a very specific definition of who uh

they deem as literally homeless um we do have that information on our website but you can find it on Hud's website too if

you're curious to know what that is um unsheltered people who are homeless so they those are the people as we talked

about before that are staying in a place not meant for human habitation uh they might be in a tent in a car in an

abandoned building on the street uh those are people who are uh do not have

a roof over their head they're unsheltered they're staying in a place where they uh should not what that's not

meant for human

habitation um so who not to count so these people who are uh doubled up their

couch surfing um they have a private Motel stayed by their household or

family or friends those people per HUD technically have a roof over their head

and so those are the people um that they have they're staying in a place where

they are covered by family friends you know they're they're hopping around her

HUD those are the people that we do not want to count for the point time anybody who's in a jail prison any sort of

Correctional Facility um the doc transitional housing those people who were not counting to the point in time

anyone who's in foster care so like a home placement or a group uh home that's dedicated to serving the homeless we're

not counting those individuals um anyone who is staying at the state hospital

hospital or equivalent um any of these dmh housing subsidy programs Mental

Health crisis fed or group homes again those are all people that HUD is deeming they have a roof over their head they're

in a stable environment that they're not literally homeless for the point in time

and then any other kind of Health Care facilties so hospitals nursing facilities Assisted Living substance use

treatment um deeds and Facilities um those are the people that were not tting it looks like we have a

question I think from Bob if I can see that correctly hi it's Bob Mack um hi Robin

um just a quick question as far as the hospitals I know in the past we've reached out to like emergency

departments should we not would that be considered in a hospital if they're in

an ed um that's a good question Mandy do

you know the answer for that I would definitely say uh emergency rooms are a great resource for point in time because

it could be someone coming in off the street was seen in that moment and then returning back to the streets right

because they're not like impatient so when we talk about hospitals we're talking about people that are impatient

in a hospital kind of thing okay once they're ad be at the emergency room for

two hours right and then be back on the street so yeah sorry Freeman go

ahead no I was just gonna say I've always gone by whether or not they were admitted that

night so if they were admitted they were inside you know

yep that makes sense thank you any other any other questions on that also if if

somebody is arrested and just taken to the county jail to be booked but are not going to you know you

know with bail reforms many get let out that same day that they were able to

be counted as well right yeah so I think what's important and Mandy if you want to jump in here

too it's it's it's more of like a we're we're looking at a single point in time

for one night versus like a long-term stay for clients so like Bob was just

saying if they're going to be admitted to the hospital and we know they're going to be there for a week that's or two weeks or whatever the case is those

are clients that we might not want to count otherwise we're counting them if it's not a a more

stable stable environment that makes any sense and I think it also brings up a good point

about um the fear of double counting like don't be afraid of double counting because we dup the back end we want to

make sure everybody counts so if they are in this kind of weird situation where they're in an emergency room and

you're not sure if they've been counted by someone else please conduct that survey um yeah we'd rather have

everybody count and do a little bit more work on the back end um and have a better count for the New Hampshire so

good questions so better to overcount than under count for sure

great so how is the data being collected so for all agencies hmis non hmis

they're going to need to do they're going to need to survey clients that are sleeping in places not meant for human

DEH habitation on that night of the 24th um Extended window can be to

collect information like we kind of talked about at the beginning of the the presentation that you do have up until

seven days after the point in time to continue to ask these questions to survey but again we want to make sure

that we're asking that question of when did you sleep where where were you sleeping on the night of the point in time that's important um the paper

survey can be used and then um all that data is collected um it's entered into a

Google form by the agency who collected it and then that's when we take the Google form responses and we uh dup and

combine them with the hmis um it's important to note to that all the data on the survey is required to be

collected again as we said previously we can't have any missing data um we can

actually show a a picture of Shina has it up on her computer the paper forms

and what they look like so you can kind of have a little bit of a visual um again we do have this on our um

knowledgebase uh website that you can pull from um and I'm sure that everybody has access to them at this point but if

you want to pull that up shtino we can kind of take a look at it I do just want to jump in like really emphasize that up

to seven days so I know as we're planning uh within the balance of State um some of our more rural areas you know

brought up in the past maybe a snowstorm hit the day of the pit right so we know that the count Maybe wasn't as accurate

as it could have been so please by all means use those extra days to go back to

that night the 24th to see where folks stayed you know again we want an accurate count and that may mean an

increase in homelessness by the numbers but we need to get to a baseline to understand the scope to be able to

really work on a solution to reducing that number so um I think after this

presentation we'll probably just highlight a couple of areas and how they're approaching that but definitely the seven days please keep that in mind

U during the week of the point in time um so this is what the paper form

looks like um again it's all the same information that is collected in hmis

it's just kind of on a paper form instead it gives you a little bit of a um a script to kind of say hi my name is

this I'm volunteering for this this is kind of what we're doing we're conducting this annual count and so

it'll kind of walk you through um how what to to say um and then if the client says that uh if they refuse or unable to

be interviewed um that's when we're going to do an observation instead um

and kind of fill out what you see um and Mandy might be able to touch a little bit more on that but if they do say sure

I'll I'll fill out this this form this is what's this is the next steps that you're going to take so um asking where

are you staying on the night of Wednesday January 24th uh what type of place were you staying in again place

not meant for human habitation were you in a tent campground all of those places or were you staying in an emergency

shelter transitional housing hotel room it's going to give all of these options where were you staying that night um and

then if we scroll a little further down um next questions this is all of that

household information so this is that information that we were talking about in relation to the pit report where you're asking them what their name date

of birth their age range their gender their race and ethnicity again those are all the same questions of right asking

in hmis we want to make sure that we're filling that out to the best that we can

um and then it gives you some information down here uh about the date of birth uh the age range the gender um

what we're kind of looking for for these These are the options that you can choose from in hmis so it's going to

give you those options down here below and and then currently fleeing from domestic violence um HIV AIDS and then

some disabling conditions as well and if you want to scroll a little bit further

down sorry we just had a question um I was going to just go through the form Al together and then

answer questions okay yeah good I just want to make sure we get through it first um so again disabling conditions

and then history of homelessness so again this is that per HUD definition is this the first time that you've been

literally homeless how long have you been literally homeless um if it's the first time how many separate times this

is that HUD definition of what they're counting as literally homeless so it kind of it's nice that it breaks it down

for you so that you don't have to think of that definition off the top of your head it kind of walks you through those steps of is this person literally

homeless per the HUD definition then you can keep scrolling I

think we're close to the end here um and then down here in our uh our

little section about do not count that we already talked about these are the people that you're not going to count so it gives you a little reminder if these

people are double do couch in paid for by motels those are the clients that you don't want to count and then in our nice

big red bold writing here we have the due date is by uh 2824 so that's kind of what the Forum

looks like uh and then I think shtin said we had a question I think I saw something about the Google forms in the

chat yeah in the chat um Sue is just wondering how we access them yeah so we

have the Google forms that are going to be up on our IC website um it's in our pit and hick knowledge based article um

which again has been sent out in the newsletter we're going to include it um in our emails uh for the pit reporting

but you can um access them through our website these are just the demo links the ones that are up currently we don't

like to post the actual Live Links until the week of the point in time because we just want to make sure that nobody's

actually going in there before and accidentally entering data um so these are the demo links if you want to take a

look at them before the point in time you can find them on our website um and I don't know shatina maybe if you or one

of us at some point can drop the link to that in the chat here as well um but it's going to go over exactly what you

just saw in the paper uh the paper survey um so if you want to go in you can kind of play around with it and kind

of see what it looks like enter some data feel free to enter fake data in here so you can practice with it and

then the week of the point in time is when we're going to set up those Live Links so that you can begin using them

once uh once we have the point in time thanks cha

and we have another yeah one other question I didn't see it I H do we have

to use the Google forms for everyone for everyone I'm not sure what

for everyone in the house Kelly can you

elaborate I think she means everyone in the household but they're on the form

you could see that there were multiple there were spots for each family member and then that translates to what

goes on the form in Google I'm assuming that's what you mean

but if not D us another question Mandy anything well and I want

to just say that there is a a that check box uh going back to the paper form you saw of an observation and I just want to

stress how careful we want to be with that you know this is really about collecting information and having people

be a part of that so I'm very hesitant always with that observation box you know we don't want to assume gender we

don't to assume ethnicity and race so uh as much participation from the

individuals that you're working with uh that we can get please please please go

that route technically it is a choice that we have there but uh again be very

careful with that yeah and that kind of goes back to the missing data too we don't want to have to choose people's

RAC or ethnicity or things like that for them so as much as you can possibly get

from the clients that you're speaking with the better we all are

so all right great so we talked a little bit about

the paper survey already we've taken a look at it the paper survey is um used by all three coc's it's the same uniform

survey across Ross the whole state so you'll all be using the same thing um again can't stress enough all required

data is on the form it's required uh the pit committee creates and edits and approves the survey uh months before the

point in time so that's kind of how we uh get to what survey we're going to be using um and then the pit committee is

made up of leadership from all three of those coc's uh so that's why we have a nice uniform uh point in time survey all

three coc's

and then again the Google forms um ICA creates the Google forms uh they match

the per the paper survey exactly we use that raw data and again we D duplicate

it uh we produce the aggregated data once all of that is cleaned up and D duplicated and that's what we then

submit to HUD um the Google form surveys can be found again on our ICA knowledge

base in the pit and hick article um sha just had it up and you might want to we might want to pull it up and show it

again sha it's a so this article is all about the point in time and the housing inventory chart so it's going to have um

everything that you need in it the timelines that we were talking about some of this information um about what

it is and why it is uh for the housing inventory chart as well and then below is when um we have all of our resources

so we have some like um Quick Gun and some um uh the the access to the paper

forms the Google Sheets everything is on there and then once this Melissa started recording this video as well so once

this training is complete and we get the recording we'll post this onto our website as well so you can access it go

back and look at it if you need

to perfect and again those Live Links will be there uh the week at appointment time so you'll be able to access

those great so that's kind of the end of our

uh PowerPoint presentation uh the next step is that cha is going to pull up hm my and we're going to kind of go over um

the the uh report and what it looks like um does anybody have any other

additional questions on anything we just went over before we do

that did I miss any in the chat sha I think we got them all no we'll just put

our um I realized there was one last slide that I missed on the PowerPoint but we'll just put the email if you have

any questions that comes up that come up after the fact we also will have um

office hours that will be in our newsletter that come up if anybody has

any questions as um we start going with the pit it'll be after the pit I don't

the dates will be in the newsletter I don't know the month it's already been in the newsletter so the it'll it's

already been in the newsletter it will be again it's um January 29th uh from 10 a.m. to 12: p.m so the link to register

for that is in the newsletter um like cha said it's a time two hours that we set aside to if you want to look at your

P your point in time reports you want to talk to us about anything we have that time set aside so you can register for

that with the the link in the newsletter so the pit report that we're

moving into that's specific to sheltered hmis agencies correct so before we move

into that since I know there's a lot of people on here for the unsheltered count I just want to uh you know because it is

so different and that you're going out you're canvasing um you're you're you know working with your community at large to

really go out the following days after the 24th know that there are pit

planning committees happening uh throughout the state so if you haven't already been looped in or connected uh

please reach out we can connect you into your local community um for kind of

joining in on that either Street Outreach canvasing being a part of actually working with individuals

experiencing homelessness or other ways like maybe making pit kits or you know

having soup on or you know there's a bunch of different roles that I think I'll contribute to making that day

successful um that maybe not necessarily direct Outreach so uh please let us know

afterwards and I think there are a couple other things coming through the chat as well

I see one from Melissa I I think I know what the what what it's asking it's um

this one for the point in time count purposes only what is the effect an observation has when no one is counted

without all data entered I think I'm not sure what no one

is counted without all data I think it just is asking what happens if we have missing data is that I don't know if I'm

reading serine or Mandy if I'm reading that wrong

yeah if whoever answer asks that question can elaborate on it just so we have Clarity on how to answer it yeah

I'm not quite sure um if we do have that was me Mandy okay

go ahead what we're we're being told at one part in the slides that we need to have all data in order for someone for for it

to be counted if we're just doing an observation what is the effect that has

on the count you know what is what is the purpose for the piit count itself

I'm not saying it doesn't have other purposes but just for the piit count itself for the

unel yeah it's a great question because so what happens and maybe IA can further

explain but what happens if they don't have all of the data it defaults to the

uh population at large so again going back to uh you know either race or

ethnicity or gender it will default to whatever is the largest number in the

the system so it will skew our results because it will not necessarily be

accurate as that person identifies because we live in New Hampshire and we are primarily in a a

white state so for example you know it's going to default to White so that's the impact that it has is that we're not

necessarily getting the corre account okay I just wanted to make sure

because we want to get as much data as possible obviously we want to make sure our folks are counted but I just wanted

to make sure what was the the effect of that thank you

sure okay so I think we're probably good question wise uh and we can move into

the system and kind of take a look at what that report looks like and hand it over to

stina okay um we just had the this is recorded um somebody just asked in the

chat so we'll put it on the knowledge base like Robin said I did put the link for the knowledge base into the chat so

um if you don't subscribe to our newsletter you should but if you don't

the link is right there and you can access all of the documents we've reviewed and then this training eventually will be on there as well um

Christie hi thanks uh we're also hoping that the recording will we will get up

on the Bureau of homelessness services website and we can send out that link as well

great um okay I'm going to go into what the

report will look like this is for again as Mandy had mentioned for the agencies that do enter into hmis so the agencies

that don't enter into hmis and are doing the non non-sheltered that is the Google form and the Google

form uh data will then be merged with this and that's how we get the ultimate

um the end numbers for the the pit so again four agencies that enter into

hmis and will be receiving a report from us I just don't want people to get confused so let me share my screen

again Zoom is insanely difficult

to share okay can everyone see my

spreadsheet great okay so when you receive

according to that timeline we will be sending we'll be running all of the reports for each individual agency the

night of the pit so any the day after the pit so any emergency shelter transitional housing or Safe Haven we'll

we'll be writing the report for you and sending it over to the following day and this is kind of what it will look like

um except there will be no highlighting I highlighted this for the purpose of what we will be looking at but as I

mentioned before this is this doesn't combine any families together so this

will just give you all of the clients um unique IDs their ages all of the

required questions but it will tell you over here in column U what their

relationship to head of household is so it's important for you as an agency to know how many clients you should have

had the night of the pit um and then how many households so that you if you see

um a head of household a child only household then you will know that you

are missing you know a couple members uh on the report um I don't know why this

downloaded with this fun little symbol but that's supposed to say head of household's child and like Robin

mentioned there are some that will be empty because it's for children so

children don't need to have their veteran status obviously this child no

veteran status um and then the DV question are not answered for children either so if you see some of these blank

it should relate to a child if it doesn't then you'll need to go back and answer it um because we are in a better

system most of the time it doesn't let you move forward if you didn't answer this but there are cases where that

might be um there are times when that might be the case the other thing to look for is that if this says um

Survivor of domestic violence if this is a yes there should be um a response in

the next column so yes no yes no yes yes

so we want to make sure that there's a follow-up answer if this does say yes um the additional required data

elements that are there are the um race and ethnicity secondary race and

those should all be race and ethnicity should be completed but that's something probably

on our end that needs to be fixed um I didn't notice that till right now oh wait nope it's over here there's right

the right column um okay so this is what it will look like it

should if you are a big shelter fit has a very large shelter this will be a really big and possibly overwhelming

report for you to look at you can filter columns however you want to look at to sort through that but this um unique ID

is how you'll go into and find the client that may have any errors so for

the sake of this training I highlighted the few errors that um were intentional

data not collected is an error data not collected here is also an error um and

data not collected and Veteran status of an this is a child that's I don't know

that's an adult it should be but um the data not collected should have um should

all be you should go back and fix them um does anyone have any questions about

the way this looks so

far before I go into the actual clients Robin anything I'm

missing I don't think so chat anything in the

chat uh NASA City Welfare recently started entering into hmis the clients

were served in motel hotels will we receive this report yep so hotels motels are

considered emergency shelter for the city um and any welfare that doesn't enter

into hmis we use a Google form but if you enter into hmis those who considered emergency shelter and we'll send those over to

you did I see something else in the chat too I think somebody uh can you define the age of a

child yep so um unless you're a youth

provider you shouldn't have any head of households that are under 18 so um the

children are under 18 and those that's why those questions don't populate do that answer the

question okay all right so when you receive your

report and oh something else okay great so when you receive your report and you do see some of these errors that you

might need to fix or you do notice that there's somebody that doesn't need to that have has to be exited um another

thing I didn't mention was making sure that any client that has to be exited the night that has to be exited because

they weren't there at the na of the pit should be exited from this report um and then from the program for this report

and then anyone that needs to be added the same thing you'll have to add them in to make sure that it's counting all

of the people that are there that's why we send this report and then like Robin mentioned we have the back and forth for a few days because you might have

clients that you need to enter that I mean we're guys are all super busy you may have not been able to enter them

right away um especially in a shelter setting so what if you do see that this

is too little or too many or whatever um we obviously go back into the system so because I have I put enroll the test

client and I didn't enter some information I'll just show you how to kind of go back into the system

everybody should know how to enroll everybody enroll a client if you enter um and to how to get that information in

there but I'll just quickly show you um I have to figure out how to change my

screen please hold

okay um so you log in like you normally would and you in

this case I'm already in my client so I knew that from my report that R race and

ethnicity was not collected and again this is one of those required data elements elements that Hut is not going to let us submit um so if we see this on

the report we send it to you we see on the report that it's not there but you tell us that this is confirmed we're

going to come back and say this is something you need to answer um again because we can't stress enough that Hut

is just not going to let us and the cooc leads are put in the position where they have to make a decision and again we'll

just defer to White because of the state that we live in and that may not properly collect the right information

so you will have to go in change this information to whatever it may be and

then save it the other question that we didn't

have answered was their um disability I

think so you'd want to go into your program that you ventured the client in and you

want to make sure that all of these are answered so all of these disabling

conditions here you can see data not collected so I would just change that to whatever it is if this is um if this the

data is not collected the client doesn't know again you have to put something if you can't OB I mean if it's a situation

where um unless somebody has a disability like a SSDI letter or

something and they're saying no it's self-report so just put no um and make sure that you have the following

questions answered so that it comes up on the

report another thing that we want that I wanted oh it looks like there's something in the

chat um our organization only uses hmis

report clients covered by cold weather emergency respons otherwise we usually use so

um okay so the question is I was reading it

quietly to myself so uh there are some agencies that may have a um a cold

weather like day Center or something and then additionally offer um shelter in

another case they would be using you would use both non hmis the Google

Document and then hmis

does that make sense so some of the like warming

stations will be using the Google Document Outreach may be collecting maybe going out to collect that

information however your community wants to do it thank you yes that answers that

question thank you no problem we also have a question from Lynn about um

conflicting information so it's it's not conflicting information so HUD does not accept any missing

information but what happens is is that um that's that's how it's not missing

once it's missing then we have to say here's the answer and we give them that answer and then it goes into HUD as that

answer right so it might be missing originally you can't get the information but then the COC leads are going to say

okay this person's race was not collected that means that they're white and then we're going to put it in as

white and is going to get submitted to HUD with the answer of white even if you did not give even if you didn't collect

that information so um so it might be missing originally but then it's it's going to get an answer and it's going to

be submitted to HUD with an answer whether you collected that information or not does that make more

sense thanks for clarifying Robin yeah um and and that's that's exactly right

so the answer may not be there originally but we have to come up with something and then because otherwise head would be like nope we can't take

this and then Olga I saw your question about people staying in the warming station that's some so this is something

each cooc I think and Mandy you might have more of a perspective on this but I

know that um people in the warming stations that are not sleeping that did

not sleep at a shelter the night before or at your shelter the night before are counted as unsheltered the people that

are in your shelter the night before um they would be put into hmis as as

sheltered that night because they were in your

shelter yeah I think that's actually a perfect example of why you do community counts right so working hand inand with

your Outreach teams on who's being counted on shelter or if they can do drop in hours at that warming station um

again don't be afraid to double count we want to make sure everybody's counted but there are ways you can be strategic

and use each other um I know Sue I think is is spearheading that down there so

you all do so well in ashaa of having that comprehensive planning but yeah it's a great point of why you use each

other as partners to make sure that everybody is counted regardless of their

situation does anyone have any more those are really great questions the warming stations are really confusing for people so um including us last year

we had a lot of questions because who was counting them so yeah they're if

they did not sleep if they were if you are meeting with them on the the day after that Thursday and they did not

sleep in your shelter that night before then they would be counted um or in a

shelter they would be counted as non

sheltered um declin to answer instead of leaving blank um in hmis there is the

client there is the option the client did not answer uh but again we will still have to put a response

there um okay so any more

questions okay great so I'm going to go back to the

report because so once you fix those errors you'll back to us um and say

these errors have been fixed um and we will send you a

report back so um it's that back and forth that once you get the report you

look at the data you decide you are able to fix whatever you need to fix or if there's nothing that needs to be fixed

then you're like all right this is good we confirm it we send you a copy and we keep it on a copy for ourselves and say

a confirm it as the report the night of the pit um you will then when you get

your new one you'll have the correct answers in these highlighted spots instead of the ones that are highlighted

and you will um that is what we'll take for that's what we'll use for HUD so the

thing the next thing that is a big um something to really remember is that the

data that you've confirmed with us is the data that we're submitting to HUD so we've had in the past people go back and

change data without letting us know so whether that means exiting clients um

I'm not talking about specifics of like data elements more so exiting or enrolling clients for the night of the

pit that we're not here on this confirmed report um if you do need to do

that you it's important that you let us know so that we can update our numbers because otherwise we're submitting you

know 10 clients on the night of the pit and then we run run a report closer to

submission and it says that you have 12 clients and then we hit come back to you and we say did you add these clients

these numbers are different what happened and then we do the back and forth again so whatever you confirm with

us that's the number that we are sending to HUD and of course we know that things happen Etc that number if it does need

to change then just let us know but we we need to be sure that the number

that we are are confirmed is the number that we're submitting and that your data doesn't

change does anyone have any questions about

that okay so that's kind of the entirety of what the report will

look like they're going back and forth um and the data the cleanup again because we were in a much better system

than we had been in the past the system doesn't really let you move forward even when I was trying to make these

intentional errors it was like hold on you messed this up so um we don't anticipate there to be a lot of errors

on these reports but we do often have this case where people need to be added or exited from each program um and

that's something more so to keep up to keep in mind when looking at these Robin did I miss

anything I don't think so I think that's the gist the only final thing is that when we do

uh send you the final like this is it this is your confirmed report we're also going to send you um the aggregated data

of that report so it's going to just say this is the amount of households you had this is the amount of adults with

children adults only this is the total count so we just kind of do it as an additional uh check just to make sure

here's the exact numbers that you should see um in your report so you're going to get an Excel and a pdf version for your

final confirmation um just with those final KS and we're happy to we have the pit

office hours as Sha said but we also um are happy to meet at any other time with you uh in between if you don't want to

show up to those pit office hours or they don't work for your schedule we have calendly links that are also on the newsletter um every other week uh you

can it has all of our availability so you can just sign up with a day or a time to talk to us about it um if you

have any questions that you can't ask on the P offit Reser you can't make it

Mandy anything else that you would like to add I think the only other thing I'd like to add is just to really look at

the pit forms when you get them like there's a script on it and you don't have to stick to the script of the form

but it has some specific definition information in there you know for me I always think back to veteran status and

it has a specific Federal definition so if someone says oh National Guard in the

script it has additional questions to ask to determine if that individual meets that status so for the sake of the

point in time we want to have it as accurate as possible so that we can have a scope of understanding about the

populations experiencing homelessness these are the numbers that Congress uses uh when they're talking about homelessness across the country so it's

important to have those subpopulations U be as accurate as possible so we can make the case uh for funding and

programs and all of that good stuff and I did put a link in the chat

to uh HUD just released new Hampshire's 2023 numbers um as we're gearing up for

2024 so that's the New Hampshire Statewide numbers and you can also Break It Out by COC as well for subpopulations

so if you're interested take a look um you know no surprise over the last two years we have had increases in

homelessness um and then we expect again a very comprehensive count this year so

uh likely we'll see an increase as again so so if you have any

other questions you know how to reach us uh again if you have any questions about linking up with the unsheltered count

and what's going on within your local community please let me know and otherwise are we turning it

over to you Christie for because I know Melissa's mic is still out yes so good

morning everyone yeah Melissa's microphone is still broken um I want to thank everyone for attending this um

balance EST State meeting today um it's really exciting we're looking forward to the piit count in

2024 um I am going to ask and I know we didn't prepare anybody but do any of the subcommittees for the balance estate

have any updates that they want to provide to the Continuum of Care

membership Heidi oh yeah um so the youth subcommittee will

be having a meeting on the 29th of January which is a Monday um we'll be breaking out into to work groups for the

coming year during that meeting uh giving updates on where our projects are

at where um sort of kind of where the whole yhdp uh community plan is at um

and context around that and then breaking out into workg groups um so that the leads for those work groups can

um put together um how we're going to work on that during the year so we have single points of contact again uh our

rural Outreach folks if anyone's interested in that uh we'll be doing a youth count this year in October so

they'll be planning for that group um trying to think of all the ones uh there's a driver's ed one for young

people um I think Becca's on this call am I missing what am I missing Becca there's five of

them uh training that's the other one I knew I was missing one and uh a training

work group to uh look at uh kind of following uh Mandy's lead with the Outreach groups in terms of putting a

curriculum together partnering with the right agencies uh the Hampshire coalition to end homelessness certainly

being one of them but also folks that are uh working with youth and young adults and um kind of planning a

curriculum around what would be best practices for those folks thanks Mandy for putting in the chat

too um yeah and uh also we are planning monitoring visits with all of the

projects right now Christine and I are putting that together and we'll be out there very soon

thank you Heidi uh Mandy do you have any updates from the Outreach committee or is there

we'll start there I mean Outreach uh all across the state right now is definitely

unsheltered point in time so again if you need to be connected let me know um

and then the veteran sub committee I am no longer the chair of so I think I saw

Katie maybe Emily as well they want to give a quick update

I can give a quick update I don't know if Emily is on this call but um we have

uh moved our um our subcommittee meeting this

month it was going to be today but scheduling conflict um it's going to be the afternoon of the 24th um via teams

we have some a lot of program updates a lot of program changes we have a new ssvf granty in the state of New

Hampshire so they will be um discussing um that service that's being

offered and we have the staff sergeant Fox Grant as well that's going to be um presenting at that committee um lots of

changes within the subcommittee uh for 2024 um I will send the um invite link

um to Christie so you have it so if anybody from um balance of state from this meeting that wants to attend that

meeting um just to get more information um you'll have that opportunity

thanks and a huge shout out to Manchester VA I don't know if we've announced it here but they have a new

coordinated entry specialist for the VA Nicole frisella so we are very excited

um as we continue to expand the coordinated entry process and kind of moving forward with data sharing and all

of that good stuff so positive

movement right thank you both um and then Freeman and I um chair the

coordinat subcommittee for the balance of State Continuum of Care um we have we

were supposed to have a meeting this week which we have cancelled because we are going to have the leadership for the

coordinat subcommittee do some strategic planning which we will present to the entire subcommittee in

February um we will also be looking at recruiting new members for the coordinate entry subcommittee meeting we

are hoping to have at least one step staff person from each one of the regional access points as part of the

coordinated tree subcommittee so you will definitely be getting an email invite from me to join if you work at a

regional access point and I think that's it for

coordinate entry today did anyone else have any updates that they wanted to share with the

group hi Susan here just want to appreciate Public Health they've really hired a lot of Outreach for workers

Bobby baggley has really seen the need for the Outreach and it's made a big

difference in nashille just just to thank you we meet on the

20 2nd is that right crew at 2:30 for

Pow Wow before the point in time actually it's Tuesday the 23rd 2:30 so

looking forward to it I have I have about 22 folks volunteering this year so

and I see you there so thank you for taking care of the the folks for the the shelter that

for the warming Center so we don't go through that this year thanks and thanks that's

it unless anyone else has anything else I don't see any hand raised or anything

in the chat our next meeting is in May um I do want to let all of you know that

we have gone through and we'll looking at last year's notice of fun oh sorry

March I think it's March already it's okay it's the weather uh so our next meeting is in March um Melissa and I

have gone through the requirements from HUD through the notice of funding opportunities available and we will be

scheduling some Continuum of Care wide trainings um and also some very specific

subrecipient trainings for all of you um so stay tuned for that we do have a training already scheduled for the March

balance of State Continuum of Care meeting um and I think that's all we

have Patty did you have anything are you good um actually this is this may seem

far field but it's it's not we're seeing more and more um referrals coming our

way of people who are working but who are stating that they are homeless so on

that vein we are just about about to Kickstart our free tax prep program um

that is a program that is National regardless of where you are in the country but most especially in New

Hampshire there is a very robust um number of sites of uh volunteer income

tax assistance as well as AARP tax Aid who will do anyone's return regardless

of income eligibility but if you do find that you are being presented with people who who

are working or who have worked recently please feel free to have them call 211

or I can um send a flyer that I've made out that can be sent to everyone as well

it is a a ridiculously valuable tool um

and and benefit for people especially uh looking in the H in our rear view mirror

with covid and all of the stimulus funds those people who had not thought they

should be filing a tax return it was much more difficult for the IRS to find them and alert them to to those stimulus

funds so there's a lot of reasons for people to um to have their taxes

prepared fuel assistants often will ask for them so again I will send out the flyer that I have it the reach in New

Hampshire is excellent so no matter where you are sitting uh there will be a a program

nearby thank you Addie does anyone have anything else

otherwise I will say thank you for attending and we look forward to seeing all of you in

March thank you thank you