Overview: Provider Participation

Single Adults Scorecard: Questions 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 3C, 3D

Does my by-name dataset include at least 90% of all single adult individuals and households experiencing literal homelessness?

This overview page, in combination with the related resources and case studies, will help you answer scorecard questions 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D and to better understand the comprehensiveness of your by-name dataset.

How does BFZ define a “homeless response system” or “providers?”

BFZ defines a “homeless response system” as the organizations and entities serving individuals and households experiencing literal homelessness within a designated geographical area. The term “provider” or “homeless service provider” refers to those organizations and entities. 

More specifically, when BFZ says “provider,” we refer to organizations and entities that operate a program and/or offer services that primarily serve individuals and households experiencing homelessness. This can include nonprofit organizations, local and federal government agencies, faith-based organizations, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, and other homeless coalitions. The provider participation scorecard questions further break these providers into the following categories, which may or may not be inclusive of all provider types in your community: 

• Providers that serve people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, including but not limited to street outreach services, hotlines, and other access points 
• Emergency shelters, safe havens, season overflow beds, hotels paid for by homeless providers, or Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) beds
• Transitional housing, including VA-funded Transitional Housing
• Victim Service Providers

Depending on how coordinated entry is set up in your community, the organization that runs coordinated entry may also be included on your provider list.

What about organizations that don’t fit the definition of a homeless service provider?

You may need to include organizations or entities outside the “homeless response system” to get to “yes” on the provider contribution scorecard questions. These could include organizations that serve people experiencing homelessness but also serve a larger population. For example, hospitals, food banks, general assistance programs, justice systems like jails and prisons, psychiatric facilities, substance use treatment centers, and more. It can also include organizations that refer individuals experiencing homelessness to services, but do not provide direct services such as libraries, general services hotlines, and others. In some cases, communities may need to include and engage these types of organizations to get to the 90% threshold set in the scorecard, especially if fewer services or resources exist that are specifically for people experiencing homelessness. 

As with much of this work, context matters, and communities are encouraged to apply these concepts in a way that makes sense to them while centering the overarching goal of the provider participation scorecard questions — including at least 90% of single adults experiencing homelessness on the by-name dataset in any given month.

Why does provider participation matter?

Gaining a shared understanding and connecting providers

A prerequisite for answering “yes” on the provider participation scorecard questions is analyzing and documenting the existing provider landscape in a given community. Coming to this shared understanding can help partners and stakeholders get clearer about who encompasses their homeless response system. Not only can this information help providers better coordinate and communicate, but it can surface gaps that may not have been evident. This gives community teams the information needed to improve their data and connect providers across the system. 

Improving equitable access to resources and services 

By increasing provider participation, a community can decrease the likelihood that someone does not access resources solely because of where they present as experiencing homelessness. By completing a full analysis of the provider landscape, a community can identify gaps and work towards connecting all possible locations where individuals may present as experiencing homelessness to the by-name dataset. This can help ensure the homeless response system can quickly identify individuals for resources and services. Existing triaging and prioritization processes can then link individuals and households to the services or optimal combination of supports that best fit their needs.

As communities work on answering yes to 3A and 3D, the question of how to collect anonymous or limited data often comes up as a consideration. For more on this topic see the Tracking Unassessed section.

How to assess provider participation and contribution across your system?

Assessing provider participation and contribution starts with building a shared understanding of your community’s provider landscape and determining which of those providers contribute data to the by-name dataset. The scorecard questions ask communities to identify if at least 90% of providers are reporting data into the by-name dataset and if those providers serve at least 90% of the single adults experiencing homelessness in your system. The distinction between these questions can be broken down in a few ways:

• First, it helps you think about scale. For example, say that you have 95% of providers contributing to the by-name dataset, but one of the providers that isn’t contributing (the 5%) serves 15% of all people experiencing homelessness. In this case, the answer to 2A would be “yes,” but 2B would be “no.” 
• Second, it helps you better understand how providers connect people to the by-name dataset and can help identify providers that do not report data from all of their programs serving individuals experiencing literal homelessness. For example, say you have a large shelter contributing data into the by-name dataset through coordinated entry assessments. However, further investigation reveals that only 50% of their clients are completing assessments and, therefore, being added to the dataset. If that provider is serving 30% of all people experiencing homelessness, then you end up missing 15% of people on the by-name dataset. In this case, the answer to 2A would be “yes,” but 2B would be “no.”

The BFZ Provider Participation Inventory Tool can help your community document your provider landscape and evaluate the provider participation scorecard questions. 

Questions 3A through 3D dive deeper into provider participation by looking at how data is collected and connected to the by-name dataset through the four “core” homeless service provider types . These provider types often require different approaches to data collection. Data collection can look very different for street outreach services compared to a brick-and-mortar shelter. Therefore, different considerations must be addressed to connect these four types of providers to the by-name dataset.

Documenting the different approaches to data collection can help you set up sustainable processes for how these provider types can continue contributing data to the by-name dataset. For example, developing avenues in which victim service providers (VSPs) can contribute data as part of your work on Question 3D can set up a community for success if VSP providers change over time.

Related scorecard questions:

Question 2A: Are 90%of CoC-funded and non-CoC-funded providers reporting data into your by-name dataset?

Question 2B: Are approximately 90-100%of single adults experiencing homelessness served by the providers reporting into your by-name dataset?

Question 3A: Is your by-name dataset able to collect data on all single adults experiencing homelessness in your community, including unsheltered individuals living in a place not meant for human habitation (e.g.,street, cars, campsites, beaches, deserts, or riverbeds)?

Question 3B: Is your by-name dataset able to collect data on all single adults experiencing homelessness in your community, including individuals in shelters, safe havens, seasonal overflow beds, hotels paid for by homeless providers or Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) beds?

Question 3C: Is your by-name dataset able to collect data on all single adults experiencing homelessness in your community, including individuals in transitional housing, including VA-funded Transitional Housing?

Question 3D: Is your by-name dataset able to collect data on all single adults experiencing homelessness in your community, including individuals fleeing domestic violence?