Homeless Services 101 Fact Sheet

 WVCEH – West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. The 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization
focused on ending homelessness within the State.

 HUD – Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal agency that allocates
funding for homeless services and oversees all funded programs.

 CoC – Continuum of Care. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allocates
HUD homeless assistance grants to organizations that participate in local homeless assistance
program planning networks. Each of these networks is called a Continuum of Care (CoC). HUD
introduced the CoC concept to encourage and support local organizations in coordinating their
efforts to address housing and homeless issues and reduce homelessness. CoC committees at
the city, county and state level coordinate their efforts to produce annual plans that identify the
needs of local homeless populations, the resources that are currently available in the
community to address those needs, and additional resources needed to fill identified gaps. The
CoC process is a community-based approach that encourages the creation of collaborative,
comprehensive systems to meet the diverse of needs of local homeless populations.

 BoS – Balance of State. Many states have large areas (often rural in nature) which are not
covered by regional, county or city continuums. Balance of state continuums operate in 31
states and make up 7 percent of all continuums. These continuums often include both highly
functional local continuums and weak local organizations which have joined together to submit
a single McKinney-Vento application for their combined geographical area. In WV, the Balance
of State is made up of 44 counties.

 McKinney Act – The original

McKinney Act was the
Homeless Assistance Act
was signed into law by
President Regan in 1987
and created 15 programs for
homeless assistance
including the Continuum of
Care Programs, the
Emergency Shelter Grant
Program, Permanent
Supportive Housing
Programs, and the Shelter
+ Care Programs. In 2002 as part of President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” Initiative, the
McKinney Act was amended to include protection of educational rights of homeless children and
youth. The act became the “McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.” This act defined
certain situations that would make a child eligible for services through the Department of
Education, such as living in a hotel or motel, or living doubled up with family/friends. The
revision also allowed homeless children to attend their school of origin if they became homeless
because homeless children tended to have higher truancy rates.
  HEARTH – The Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act, signed into
law in 2009, but not yet implemented by HUD. Yet another reauthorization to the McKinney-
Vento Act. The most important thing that HEARTH will do is change the definition of homeless
under HUD. It will allow communities to utilize HUD funding for people who are homeless under
other federal programs (like the Department of Education) and will include language regarding
those who are “unstably housed.” HEARTH will also expand Homeless Prevention Programs and
rename the ESG Program from Emergency Shelter to Emergency Solutions. This represents a
shift in HUD’s focus from “warehousing” homeless people in shelter to providing housing and
“solutions” to their barriers.

 HMIS – Homeless Management Information System. A shared data system designed to provide
an unduplicated count of homeless individuals, information on the number of people who are
homeless, related demographics and their needs over time. All HUD funded projects must utilize
an HMIS system to track client level data for reporting purposes. The system that we use in the
BoS CoC can be used as a case management tool. Case managers can track client progress,
make case notes, enter tasks, interventions and goals as well as client demographics (age, race,
gender, income, etc.). Data can be extrapolated in many different forms.

 VA – Department of Veterans Affairs - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is taking decisive
action to end Veteran homelessness in five years.  All Veterans at risk for homelessness or
attempting to exit homelessness must have easy access to programs and services.  VA offers a
variety of resources, programs, and benefits such as Prevention Resources, in-patient mental
health facilities, Employment Assistance and Training, case management and linkage to other
non-VA resources. Each VA Medical Center has a Homeless Veterans Programs Coordinator.

 PIT – Point in Time Count. A count of all sheltered and un-sheltered homeless individuals and
families. It is required bi-annually by HUD, but WV does an annual count. Gives a snapshot of
homelessness on a given night. Supports planning efforts by the CoC and local communities to
address the needs of the homeless, identifies gaps in services, and measures progress.

 HIC – Housing Inventory Chart. An electronic document submitted to HUD in conjunction with
the PIT. It lists all available beds and units to house the homeless in our state. Includes HUD
funded beds as well as community based beds (such as churches). The PIT is compared against
the HIC to come up with a utilization rate, which is the percentage of beds available and bodies
using those beds.

http://www.hudhre.info/documents/CoC101.pdf
http://documents.csh.org/documents/policy/NAEHHearth.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinney%E2%80%93Vento_Homeless_Assistance_Act
http://www.va.gov/homeless/