Overview: Inactivity

Single Adults Scorecard: Questions 4A, 4B, 4C

How many single adult households in your community are experiencing literal homelessness each month?

This overview page, in combination with the related resources and case studies will help you answer scorecard questions 4A, 4B, and 4C. These resources dig deeper into how a community can understand and track whether a person experiencing literal homelessness is no longer active, or is “inactive,” and help communities to ensure that inactive policies, processes, and procedures are consistently defined and implemented.

How is inactivity defined by Built for Zero?

Generally speaking, BFZ defines someone as “inactive” in a given community if they no longer meet the U.S. Department of Housing and Development’s definition of literal homelessness in the community’s geographical area. This includes:

• When the homeless response system cannot confirm a person’s housing status (after being initially identified as literally homeless) because they were unable to contact that person after a specified number of contact attempts within a defined time frame (as defined by the community),
• When an individual who was initially identified as literally homeless moves into a housing situation that does not meet HUD’s literally homeless definition. For example, couch surfing or doubling up,
• When an individual, regardless of housing status, moves out of the community’s defined geographical area (as defined by the community).
• When an individual who was initially identified as experiencing literal homelessness moves into an institutional setting for more than 90 days. 
• The unfortunate scenario when someone on the active list passes away.

What are some examples of an institutional setting (examples based on HMIS data standards)? Foster care, foster care group home, hospital, residential non-psychiatric medical facility, long-term care facility or nursing home, psychiatric hospital or other psychiatric facility, jail, prison, juvenile detention facility, substance abuse treatment facility, or detox center.

Why does tracking inactivity matter?

Connecting folks who are unhoused to housing quickly

Tracking inactivity can help communities efficiently match individuals on the active list to housing opportunities and help service providers coordinate care. Having a reliable and updated list of everyone experiencing homelessness allows a community to quickly connect individuals to eligible housing opportunities and resources. Another benefit of continuously updating someone’s active status is that it requires the system to be accountable for maintaining contact with everyone who is identified as unhoused. This can decrease the likelihood of someone not receiving services or housing opportunities solely because they have lost contact with a specific person or provider. 

Greater insight into potential areas for system improvement

Tracking each month how many people exit the homeless response system because they moved to inactive provides important information about a system’s performance and capacity. By tracking inactivity, communities can start to identify areas for improvement. For example, how many people are inactive each month because they lost contact with the system versus entering an institution? How many people are returning to homelessness who last exited the system to inactivity? Knowing why empowers communities to improve their system and better advocate for the resources needed to end homelessness. 

How to develop and implement an inactive policy

The BFZ Inactive Policy Guide can help your community create inactive policies and procedures that align with the BFZ quality data standards for the single adult population. 

The scorecard questions cover three primary topics of the inactive policy, all dependent on having a documented inactive policy.  The three critical topics covered in the scorecard questions include:

• Establishing a documented understanding of who is no longer active because they moved into an institutional setting for more than 90 days. Tracking this information allows a community to maintain an accurate active list. It can also be used to understand when individuals move in and out of homelessness to related systems like health care and criminal justice.
• Establishing the steps that need to take place to confirm someone is no longer active because of a lack of contact within an established time frame (i.e., the inactive threshold), which helps drive accountability and ensures the community can do their due diligence in engaging with folks before they are moved to the inactive status.
• Establishing a shared understanding of cases when someone can be moved to inactive status without needing to do additional outreach. For example, someone could move to another community or state, they could move into a housing situation that means they are no longer experiencing literal homelessness, or unfortunately, someone could have passed away. 

Related scorecard questions:

Question 4A: Has your community established a written policy that specifies the number of days of inactivity (i.e. the person cannot be located) after which a person’s status will be changed to “inactive,” and which includes protocols to attempt to locate an individual before they are moved to inactive status?

Question 4B: Does that written policy account for changing an individual’s status to “inactive” based on a client’s verified absence from the community before the specified number of days has elapsed? (e.g. reunited with family in a different community, death, etc.)

Question 4C: Does that written policy account for individuals on your list who are entering an institution (e.g., jail or hospital)where they are expected to remain for fewer than 90 days?