LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Billions of dollars Much money has been poured into efforts to get California’s homeless off the streets, but outdated computer systems with error-ridden data are often unable to provide even basic information, such as where a bed is available in a shelter on a given night. This inefficiency can have serious consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people – many of whom suffer from serious mental illness, drug addiction or both – live in trash-strewn camps that spread in almost every neighborhoodand where rows of rusty campers occupy entire blocks.
Even in the state where Silicon Valley is located, technology has not kept pace with the long-term crisis. In an era when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few taps of a cell phone, there is no system that provides a comprehensive list of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 homeless people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, Chief Technology Officer for Better Angels Uniteda nonprofit, described LA’s technology as “systems not talking to each other, lack of accurate data, no one on the same page about what’s real and what’s not.”
The systems can’t answer exactly how many people are there at any given time. Where are they? he said.
For people living on the streets, it can have consequences for whether someone can sleep outside for a night or not. This distinction can be life-threatening.
“They’re not delivering the services to the people at the time when the people need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were on display at a squalid encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers who handed out water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She handed out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition offers hot food and services. A small dog darted out of a tent, barking furiously, while an unkempt man in a coat shuffled past a stained mattress on a scorching day.
At the end of the visit, Reyes began typing notes on her cell phone. These notes were later retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually recopied into a federal database.
“Every time you move it from one medium to another, you can lose data. We know we don’t always get the full picture,” Reyes said. “The victims are the people who are supposed to be operating the system.”
Technology has sputtered while the homeless population has risen. Some wonder how you can combat a problem without reliable data to know its scale? A annual homeless count The city has recently seen a slight decline in population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data. Tents and encampments can be seen almost everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pointed to the shortcomings of technology as one of the obstacles she faces in homeless programs, describing the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the airplane as you fly it.”
She said earlier this year that three to five homeless people die every day on the streets of LA
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said ordered state agencies begin clearing homeless camps on state land in its boldest move yet after a Supreme Court ruling allow cities to enforce ban on sleeping outside in public areas.
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases about the homeless people they interview, including paper notes. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it quickly becomes outdated because of the delay between interviews and when it is entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMI, is designed as a desktop application, which makes it difficult to use on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because the case managers are forced to take notes, either on their phones or on scraps of paper, or they just try to remember it, and they usually don’t enter it until they get back to their desk,” Miller said. “Hours, days, a week or even longer afterward.”
Every organization that coordinates homeless services uses an HMIS program to meet data collection and reporting standards set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at LA-based People who help the homelessa large service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not communicate with the HMIS system.
“When you’re manually duplicating things, it opens the door to all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors can be the difference between someone having a place to stay and someone not having one.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analysis at the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates housing and services for the homeless in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database with 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology improvements.
For case managers, “it’s already a challenge to see … how many beds are available in general,” Kuhn said.
Other changes include a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and the development of a way to measure whether caseworkers are entering data on time, Kuhn said.
It is not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can cause delays in data collection. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority strives to have data entered into the system within 72 hours, but that standard is not always met.
Hoping to fill the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They’re building a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Because homeless people are temporary and difficult to find for follow-up help, a map can be created of the places where someone has been found. This allows case managers to refine the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is matching them to a homeless person in real time. So a data profile would show the services the person has received in the past, medical problems, and make it easy to contact health professionals if needed.
As an added benefit (if enough agencies and providers are willing to participate), the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations showing where homeless people are moving in the region, or where concentrations of homeless people have gathered.
A key goal for the prototypes: ease of use, even for employees with low digital literacy. Information entered into the app is sent directly to the database, eliminating unnecessary re-entry and keeping information up-to-date.
Time is often of the essence. Once a shelter bed is found, there is a 48-hour window to claim the spot, which Reyes says only happens half the time. The technology is so inadequate that sometimes the coalition doesn’t know a spot is available until it’s expired.
She is impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is currently being tested, and is confident that the app will reduce the number of people who miss their mortgage deadlines and increase the reliability of the service.
“I hope Better Angels will help us bring some humanity back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
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Har reported from San Francisco.
