Blog
Homelessness Data Self-Assessment
HIFIS 4 Deployment Options in British Columbia
Communities in British Columbia have been caught between a rock and a hard place, HIFIS-wise, with BC Housing holding a provincial license but only utilizing it for their own funded programs, and Designated Communities now being required under Reaching Home to adopt HIFIS and Coordinated Access locally.
ACRE Consulting was hired by Employment and Skills Development Canada (now Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada) to identify viable options for HIFIS deployment across British Columbia, …
My Initial Thoughts on the Ontario HPP Program
As of April 1, 2022, Ontario communities now have new funding requirements through the HPP program. There's a lot to take in here, so many communities are rightly concerned about what this means for them. In particular, those using HIFIS are wondering how they should start recording data so that they can pull it out at the end of the year.
I'm afraid that I don't have all the answers yet, but since so many people are thinking about this right now, I thought it would be good to start a discussio…
Supportive Housing in HIFIS 4: Recommendations Report
- The fact that Reaching Home-funded agencies will soon be required to use HIFIS 4, and that some eligible activities do not clearly align with the available HIFIS modules (including transitional housing and permane…
Passwords & Account Security
Several years ago, we wrote about a new feature (new in version 4.0.52!) that allowed for more secure passwords in HIFIS, with more options for customizing.
Internet security has evolved, so we thought it was time to revisit our old discussion. HIFIS has several features that allow you to configure some things, but how should you configure them?
Password Expiry
One thing that has been examined recently is policies that force a user to create a new password every so often (typically 90 days). …
New Feature: Clone Users
In HIFIS 4.0.59.5 (December 2021), there's a new feature that allows you to clone an existing user. (If this sounds familiar, that's because we posted about the idea recently!)
What this option does is copies all the configuration from one user to a brand new user account: this includes the Roles, Service Providers they have access to, default Service Provider, and Rights for each Service Provider.
It's super simple to use. When you want to clone a user, just click on the new Clone User button…
Why you need TWO reports for Coordinated Access
But sometimes they also …
How to Record Street Outreach in HIFIS 4 (Revisited)
Street outreach involves moving outside the walls of the agency to engage people experiencing homelessness who may be disconnected and alienated not only from mainstream services and supports, but from the services targeting homeless persons as well.
Homeless Hub
Street outreach is when a worker goes outside of their place of employment to deliberately connect with people experienc…
Diversion in HIFIS 4: Recommendations Report
The HIFIS 4 Working Group meeting in September 2020 confirmed shelter diversion as one of the top priorities for new features. This builds on previous discussions, which have consistently found shelter diversion as one of the top 3 gaps in HIFIS 4 (along with street outreach, and prioritization which was implemented in HIFIS 4.0.59).
Built for Zero Canada and ACRE Consulting, as members of the HIFIS 4 Working Group, took the initiative to consult with communities and propose what Diversion could …
Simple Training Time Calculator
Luckily, there's a simple way to get yourself a rough idea of how long you need to spend training your staff. We've put together a calculator where you can put in your requirements and find out how much time you need. Note that this gets you a very, very rough idea! Just a place to start.
Calculate Now