Over the past several years, Congress has directed the U.S. Department of Urban Development (HUD) to assist local jurisdictions in implementing Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) and in using data from these systems to obtain an unduplicated count of homeless persons, analyze local patterns of services usage, and assess local service needs.

A HMIS is a computerized data collection application designed to capture client-level information over time on the characteristics and service needs of homeless persons. The development of a local HMIS is about:

(1) Bringing the power of computer technology to the day-to-day operations of individual service providers;

(2) Knitting together service providers in a more coordinated and effective service delivery system for the benefit of homeless clients; and

(3) Obtaining and reporting critical aggregate information about the characteristics and nees of homeless persons.

One of HUD's major goals in this HMIS initiative is to help individual homeless service providers access the very best computer technology to assist them in their day-to-day operations and to help increase the effective coordination of services in the Continuum of Care (CoC).