Tool: Provider Participation Inventory

Overview

Understanding the current provider landscape is crucial for identifying which organizations serve single adults in your community, assessing their contributions to the by-name dataset (BND), and identifying any gaps that may hinder the development of a comprehensive dataset. The purpose of the provider participation inventory is to create a shared, central document that can be used to analyze levels of participation and contribution to the by-name dataset. 

The completed tool also serves as documentation for questions 2A and 2B on the Single Adults Scorecard, and can help to support the responses to questions 3A-3D.

The Provider Participation section of the Quality Data Toolkit provides further background and context for using this tool. 

How to Complete the Provider Participation Inventory

Set up: Provider Name and Provider Type

The Provider Participation Inventory (PPI) should include all local homeless response system providers that serve folks experiencing homelessness in your community, regardless of funding source. Other community organizations that serve both folks experiencing homelessness and the general population, such as institutions, health care systems, meal centers, police departments, hotlines, or others should be added if they have programs that specifically focus on folks experiencing homelessness and/or are a critical part of the provider landscape. If a provider runs multiple programs, consider adding a row for each program, using the provider type column to differentiate between program types.

The PPI can be built using the local improvement team’s shared knowledge, or by using the most recent Housing Inventory Chart (HIC) as a starting point. We recommend using HIC data for any community that functions within an entitlement CoC (i.e. not a region of a Balance of State). Below you will find detailed instructions for each method.

Please note, that the PPI does provide the option of including providers that only serve Youth and Family. If your community is only working on the Single Adults Scorecard and identifying Youth and Family providers is not helpful at this time, please consider limiting the providers in the inventory to only those that serve the single adult population.

Completing the Inventory

How to identify the “Household Type Served”

This field should reflect the type of households served by each provider. If a provider only serves single adults (such as a men’s emergency shelter), select “Single Adults only.” If a provider serves both single adults and families or youth (such as a general outreach provider, select “Combination of Single Adults and Youth/Families.” If a provider only serves youth and/or families and does not serve single adults (such as a youth shelter), select “Youth/Families Only” if you are including youth and family providers in the inventory.

How to Complete “Estimated Households Served (#)” and “Estimated Single Adults Served (#)

These fields are an estimate of the total number of households and the total number of single adults served by each provider during a typical month and should be based on your team’s best understanding of your current state. If a provider on your list works with adults and families or youth, enter the estimated number of households served in the “Estimated Households Served (#)” column and only the estimate of single adults served in the “Estimated Single Adults Served (#)” column. If you are only focusing on building an inventory of providers that serve single adults, you can consider the “Estimated Households Served (#)” category an optional field. If a provider does not serve single adults, enter “0” in Estimated Single Adults Served. Please reference the BFZ Reporting Reference Guide for more information on the definition of a “Single Adult.”

How to Identify the “Estimated Level of Contribution to BND”

This field is an estimate of the percentage of single adults served by the provider that are connected to the BND and should be based on your team’s best understanding of the current state of each provider. If the BND is populated by HMIS enrollments and the provider enrolls every single adult served into HMIS, enter 100%. If the BND is based on enrollment into Coordinated Entry and the provider only connects approximately a quarter of the single adults they serve to Coordinated Entry, enter 25%. If a provider that serves single adults is not contributing to the BND, enter 0%. If a provider does not serve single adults, leave the field blank.

Optional Fields

Estimated Households Served (#): If you are only focusing on building an inventory of providers that serve single adults, you can consider the “Estimated Households Served (#)” category an optional field. 

Method of Contribution: The response to this question depends on how by-name data is collected across the system. The objective of this section is to provide more context on how each provider connects single adults to the BND. Some examples of values to use are “HMIS,” “CE Enrollment,” “HMIS or CE Referral,” etc. For example, if the BND is generated by HMIS data and the provider does not participate in HMIS, but does refer all single adults to an HMIS participating access point, or collaborates with an HMIS participating provider to connect folks to HMIS on site, note “HMIS Referral.” This is an optional field and can be used in any way that is most helpful. 

Sub-Population: If your team would like to look at a specific sub-population, such as veterans or chronically homeless individuals, use this field to indicate those sub-populations. This is an optional field and can be used in any way that is most helpful. 

Notes/Next steps: Use as needed. This field could be used to document when the provider row was last updated.

How to document providers that end services:
In order to maintain a historical record of your provider landscape, you can retain a provider on the list even if they have stopped services. To do this, clear all of the cells except the Provider Name column and add a note to the Notes/Next Steps column with the date the entry was changed.

Analyzing the Inventory — What Comes Next?

After the inventory is complete and all fields are filled out your team can use the inventory to determine next steps and as documentation to support questions 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 3C, and 3D on the Single Adults Scorecard. 

If the “Estimated Level of Contribution” is below 100%, the cell will be highlighted yellow to indicate the provider does not contribute 100% of their single adult data to the BND. If the contribution level is 0%, (i.e. the provider does not contribute to the BND), the cell will be highlighted red. 

If the percentage calculated for “2A: Providers contributing to the BND” is under 90%, it will be highlighted red. In order to increase the percentage to above 90%, more providers need to contribute to the BND. Look at the inventory to determine which providers are not yet contributing to the BND (as indicated by a 0% in the “Estimated Level of Contribution to BND (%)” column). 

If the percentage calculated for “2B: Single Adults served by providers contributing to the BND” is under 90%, it will be highlighted red. In order to increase the percentage to above 90%, either more providers need to contribute to the BND. or the level of contribution for the providers already contributing needs to increase. For example, if a provider serves 50 single adults, but only adds those to the BND who have been assessed, consider working with that provider to have them add the unassessed single adults to the BND.