From The New York Times

The approach of tracking homeless people by name is backed by Community Solutions, a New York nonprofit that has persuaded 83 communities across the country to use its software and to accept its assistance, including Washington, Jacksonville, Fla., and Riverside County, Calif. Many of those communities are focused for now on their populations of homeless veterans, but the same methods serve for other populations, too.

Community Solutions also offers a useful definition of what it means to eliminate homelessness. It aims to reduce homelessness to “functional zero,” meaning that the number of people experiencing homelessness is smaller than the number that are successfully placed in housing in the average month.