Toledo HMIS

FOCUS  Toledo, Ohio

Toledo Blade Editorial Article published Thursday, January 15, 2004
Homeless: Sign up

Toledo Blade Article published Tuesday, October 5, 2004
City board to address homelessness issues

Toledo Blade Article published Tuesday, January 6, 2004
City considers agency to aid homeless

Toledo Blade Article published Saturday, January 10, 2004
Database helps homeless Toledoans

Homeless individuals and families will see a decrease in duplicative intakes, streamlined referrals, coordinated case management, and improved benefit eligibility assessment.

Local agencies providing services to the clients will see improved tracking of client outcomes, coordinated services both internally among agency programs and externally with other community social service providers, assistance with preparation of financial and programmatic reports, and comprehensive information for making program design decisions.

Local communities and public policy makers will have a better understanding of the extent and scope of homelessness, assistance with identifying service gaps, informing systems design and policy decisions, and development of a forum for addressing community-wide issues.

Through an extensive community-wide planning process conducted to assess the technological capacity of homeless providers for implementing this tracking system, Bowman Internet Systems, Shreveport LA (www.bowmansystems.com) was chosen as the provider of this system accessed via an interactive web site. (A demo of the Bowman tracking system can be accessed via the site noted above select Products, ServicePoint, demo).

The system was launched with a pre-selected Toledo Pilot Agency Task Force of 14 local agencies providing services to the homeless population. It has since been expanded to other local agencies and this expansion will be ongoing

The design and maintenance of a secure system is essential to the ongoing use and integrity of the Toledo HMIS. Privacy protections built into the system are enforced with technology mechanisms that limit the behavior of system users and protect the system and client records from being accessed, changed, or shared by unauthorized users.

Client Consent form signed by all clients provides clients with an understanding of information collected and shared.

Over 2,100 clients have been input on the system since November 2003. The Toledo HMIS is projected to be incorporated into the organizational structure of the future Toledo Homeless Authority currently being developed.