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Printed
on Thursday, Jan. 29th, 2004
San Jose Mercury News
County
Goes High Tech to Manage Homeless
By Leigh Weimers
Homelessness and high tech. Tech layoffs have put too many people on the street. Now technology is helping get a handle on putting roofs over their heads again.
Santa Clara County has announced a new program -- the Homeless Management Information System, awkwardly known by the initials HMISSCC -- to not only let local agencies streamline aid for the homeless but also to track how many homeless people there actually are here. Starting with such agencies as Cupertino Community Services, InnVision and the Bill Wilson Center, the program will add agencies every two to three months until it links a total of 17 county agencies representing 64 different sites by the end of the year -- a requirement for receiving continued federal funding.
"Often people don't know where to turn when they find themselves on the street," says Shiloh Ballard of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group, who is a board member of Community Technology Alliance, which designed and implemented the system.
"Now when an individual or a family goes to a shelter, they can find what they need from multiple agencies. And we can learn which combinations of services work best and identify any gaps." The system also should provide a demographic picture of the county's homeless population, something that's never been done here before.
It won't be perfect, of course. Some who are mentally ill or addicts resist what they feel is the regimentation of shelters and won't want to participate. But the rest should find it simpler to find shelter, get counseling and job training without wasteful repetition, even get something as simple as a personal voicemail number (it's hard to get a job if an employer can't call you back).
You can check out the details at the HMISSCC Internet site (www.hmisscc. org) and the Community Technology Alliance site (www.cta group.org), which also provide links for homeless aid in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties (www.helpscc.org) and for information on subsidized housing (www.hou singscc.org).
There'll
also be a pleasant way to learn more Feb. 12 at 6:30 p.m. when a launch
party is scheduled at Teske's Germania restaurant (co-owner Greg Baumann
also is a technology alliance board member).There'll be no charge for
the food, but proceeds from a silent auction and the sale of good German
beer will go toward keeping the program functioning (the feds may mandate
it, but they don't always fund well enough). "Bring your checkbook,''
Baumann advises.