How to record supportive housing in HIFIS

One of the remaining gaps in HIFIS is for housing programs. The Housing Placement module works reasonably well for programs like Housing First and Rapid Re-Housing, in which a caseworker:

1. Starts searching for housing with a client

2. Secures housing

3. Helps them move in

4. Provides assistance after move-in

5. Follows up to ensure they remain housed

However, many housing programs start with the client moving in. Their workflow looks like this:

1. Help the client move in

2. Support them while they are moved in (the definition of "support" can operate on a spectrum here)

3. Service ends when the client moves out

For programs that look like this, including but not limited to permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, and affordable housing, the Housing Placement module isn't a great fit for them.

That's the reason why we at ACRE Consulting undertook a national project to get communities' feedback and proposed a new Supportive Housing module. But that new module isn't guaranteed to come anytime soon, leaving providers stuck. On the one hand, they might be required to adopt HIFIS for all their programs; on the other, nothing really matches. And yet, they might not want to heavily invest in a solution that will be only temporary.

So, without further ado, here are some options you could consider:

Admissions Module

For the record, this is not something we endorse. But we know that several transitional housing projects out there are utilizing the Admissions module, so we thought we’d walk you through it.

The advantage of using Admissions is that it’s easy for staff. You just book them in, put them in a bed, and move on with your day. It’s the fastest option. In addition, there are lots of reports that have to do with Admissions. It’s easy to get a bed list and see who is currently living at your facility, and how long they’ve been there.

But that’s the end of the good stuff. One problem is that HIFIS assumes that anyone staying in the Admissions module is homeless. (No, this is not a bug. Admissions is intended for shelters.) So the whole time someone is staying in an Admissions bed, they’re accumulating days towards chronic homelessness. Eventually, everyone staying in the Admissions module will be displayed as chronically homeless.

Related, you can designate your Service Provider to be something like “Transitional Housing” (or in the picture below, “Access Point”) and this will show up in the client’s Housing History, but it will still be counted as being homeless. So this will confuse some staff. “Why does it say that my client is in Transtitional Housing but their Housing Status says ‘Homeless’?”

The next problem is that Admissions is a bed-based module. So that means if you want to move a whole family into a housing unit, each person needs their own bed, even if they’re sharing. There might only be 3 beds in a housing unit, but if you’re using the Admissions module, you might have to add 4 or 5 beds. That, of course, will throw off your occupancy reports if you’re relying on those.

And finally, because it’s intended for emergency shelter, there’s no way to track rent or housing supplements or any exchange of money related to the stay.

Housing Placements Module

Of course, we talked about how this probably isn't a great fit, but we would be remiss if we didn't give it the attention it deserves, because this is the closest to "intended use" we can currently get to.

The advantages of using the Housing Placement module are:

• You’re recording a service that’s directly connected to the client’s housing

• It counts as housing, unlike the Admissions module which counts as shelter

• You can record nuances of what type of housing it is - affordable housing, supportive housing, transitional housing, etc.

• You can track rent and housing subsidies

However, the big drawback is that it doesn’t match the workflow of staff. Notably, there’s no “Move Out” button. Instead, you have to record a “Final Follow-up.” So I wouldn’t be surprised if most of your clients appear to be living in that unit forever, or at least receiving services forever.

You could make it work by doing the following:

• Disable the Housing Placement Attempts sub-module

• Have just one staff that’s responsible for recording all this information in HIFIS, to ensure accuracy

Housing Loss Prevention Module

The Housing Loss Prevention module sounds like a weird solution, but hear me out: it’s like the Housing Placements module, but without all the beginning stuff (the searching for housing, securing, and moving in). The record starts while the client is already in housing. So in a sense, it matches the workflow better for staff, since they don’t need to do as many steps.

However, it’s still not a great fit, because of the cognitive dissonance. First staff need to create a Housing History record. Then they need to add a Housing Loss Prevention record. Then, when the client moves out, they have to add a Final Follow-Up. None of that language really fits, and while it’s more streamlined and has all of the same benefits of Housing Placements, it’s still not perfect.

Housing History + Case Management

Which brings us to our final option. I should point out that neither the Admissions module nor the Housing Placements module nor the Housing Loss Prevention module allow staff to record case notes, so I’d bet that staff would also be using the Case Management module in conjunction with whatever you deem the primary housing-related module.

If that’s the case, then why not disconnect these two pieces?

Use the Case Management module to determine which clients are receiving services. Then, for each of those clients, look up to see what their Housing History record is while they’re actively receiving services. So instead of searching for a housing-specific service module to record who is living where, record the service as a service and the where as client information instead.

Obviously this isn’t perfect. You can’t use this to record Housing Subsidies. It’s also challenging to track occupancy, if that’s important to you. For example, you’d be able to tell that 48 clients are in your program (via Case Management) and you could get a list of their unit numbers (via Housing History), but you probably couldn’t get a list of which units were vacant.

But the major benefit for this approach is it’s easy for staff (like Admissions) but not actively recording the wrong kind of data (like Admissions). You’re sacrificing some potential data (like Housing Subisidies) that you could have gotten from another module (like Housing Placements), but it strikes us as a good balance for the interim. Another benefit to this is that once the new Supportive Housing module exists, it strikes us as if it would be a relatively easy transition.

Conclusion

We know, none of these are prefect. That’s why we’re proposing a new module, in hopes that one day this blog post will become irrelevant. Want it to happen sooner? Let Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada know how big a problem this is for you, and ask when the new Supportive Housing module will be coming!