Homeless Management Information System

What is HMIS?

HMIS stands for Homeless Management Information System, which is used to collect and report data on homelessness in compliance with HUD's data collection, management, and reporting standards. HMIS data is used by HUD and policymakers to improve homeless policy and decision-making at the federal, state, and local levels.

What does it mean to be the HMIS lead?

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires that all Continuum of Care (CoC) grantees use HMIS. Other homelessness projects may also be required to use HMIS by their funders. The Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness is responsible for managing, training, collecting, and reporting data into and out of the system. The Coalition doesn’t own the data entered into HMIS and is governed by a Steering Committee of the CoC.

What kind of data does HMIS collect?

HMIS collects data including the number of people experiencing homelessness, the services they receive, and the effectiveness of homeless programs in line with HUD’s Data Standards. Local programs, funding or initiatives may also require specific data collection elements outside of the HUD Data Standards, the HMIS team also works with those entities to meet custom data collection needs.

It’s important to note that outside of program-specific data, HMIS data is self-reported meaning that the clients provide the information themselves.

The data on our HMIS system is private and remains confidential with required client consent to collect information.

Participating Organizations

Presently, we have over 40 organizations (and growing) and over 200 HMIS users in Rhode Island gathering information on HMIS to better inform policies and the general public alongside aiding in improving our society overall. The data on our HMIS system is private and remains confidential with required client consent to collect information.

See our community partners here.