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Background
One of the measures that our CoC reviews in the Project Performance Reports, is Length of Stay [in project], and HUD reviews Successful Placement from Street Outreach and Successful Placement in or Retention of Permanent Housing within their System Performance Reports. For these reasons, it is very important to know at what point a client, enrolled in a Street Outreach Project, should be exited because it will vary depending on their Destination.
Street Outreach Exiting Protocol
It is important to exit clients from Street Outreach (SO) projects when they have been housed in the project they were referred to, with the exit Destination of the appropriate project type. Clients enrolled in Street Outreach projects should be exited in the following manner:
- If a client is referred to an Emergency Shelter (ES) or Transitional Housing (TH) project, the client should be exited on the date the client enrolled into the ES or TH project.
- If the client was referred to a Rapid Re-Housing (RRH), Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), or Other Permanent Housing (OPH) project, the client should be exited from the SO project with an exit date of the client's Housing Move-in Date in the project they were referred to.
- If staff has not made any contact with the client within 60 days of the last contact date.
- The exit date should be set to the last date the client received services and not the date a staff is processing the exit. If the entry date is the last time a staff had contact with the client, the exit date would be set to that entry date.
- Exit Destination would be set to "No Exit Interview Completed".
In all cases, the exit Destination should be the project type of the referred project. See the table below for reference. There are no exceptions to this exiting process, even if you are still working with the client after their enrollment or placement. To record services provided to former Street Outreach clients who are now placed in shelter or permanent housing, please contact the HMIS Help Desk to determine the best option for your agency.
| Project Type Client Enrolled In | When Client Should be Exited from SO | Exit Date to enter in HMIS | Exit Destination Selection in HMIS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency Shelter | At entry into ES | Enrollment date at ES | Emergency shelter, including hotel or motel paid for voucher with emergency shelter |
| Transitional Housing | At entry into TH | Enrollment date at TH | Transitional housing for homeless persons (including homeless youth) |
| Rapid Re-housing | At placement into unit | Housing Move-in date at RRH | Rental by client, with RRH or equivalent subsidy |
| Permanent Supportive Housing | At placement into unit | Housing Move-in date at PSH |
Permanent housing (other than RRH) for formerly homeless persons |
| Other Permanent Housing | At placement into unit | Housing Move-in date at OPH | Permanent housing (other than RRH) for formerly homeless persons |
This is a visual representation of how the client's enrollments should look in HMIS. If the client is placed in an ES or TH project, there should be no overlap between the client's SO enrollment and their ES or TH enrollment. If the client is placed in a RRH, PSH, or OPH project, there will most likely be some overlap between the SO enrollment and the PH enrollment because clients are not usually placed in a PH unit on their first day enrolled in a PH project.
Why is the Street Outreach Exit Process Important?
Exiting a client correctly ensures that the work being done by Street Outreach projects is reflected on the System Performance Report; exiting clients to ES, TH, or PH is considered a successful placement for SO projects! See the table below for a list of all of the Destinations that are considered successful for SO projects.
Successful and Unsuccessful SPM Exit Destinations for SO
(Note: Destinations marked as NA are considered neutral and neither help or hurt our system performance.)
