SLO County to spend $3.4 million on ‘revolutionary’ system to collect info on homelessness
San Luis Obispo County will soon have a new system for collecting information on homelessness.
On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to spend $3.4 million on software for managing homelessness data, ranging from how many unhoused folks live in the county to what services they regularly access.
Supervisor John Peschong was absent from the meeting when the vote took place.
“Measuring the extent and understanding the nature of homelessness is essential to combating it,” San Luis Obispo County Homeless Services Manager Joe Dzvonik said at the meeting.
An improved data management system will help the county understand the scale and root causes of homelessness, track progress of individuals contacted by social workers, and find better solutions based on what’s working and what’s not, Dzvonik said.
“The capability expansion shown here is nothing short of revolutionary,” he said. “It allows our service providers to communicate rapidly and accurately in a way never seen before in this county.”
Improving the homeless management information system is part of the county’s five-year plan to reduce homelessness by half by 2027.
Supervisor Bruce Gibson called the program “an investment well made,” and the other supervisors agreed.
“In the long term, there’s so many savings,” Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said. “There’s just a huge loop of being able to help each other while helping individuals.”
Why switch to a new data management program?
The county’s current data management system is flawed, Dzvonik said, because there isn’t a simple way to track when a client enters homelessness, accesses services, and if they eventually find housing.
Agencies aren’t able to collect and analyze data about their clients efficiently with the current system, 5 Cities Homeless Coalition executive director Janna Nichols said.
Right now, service providers must enter the same data about each client into four different databases, Nichols said.
“It is clearly taking away time where we could be doing far more productive work,” Nichols said.
Different agencies also aren’t able to view each other’s data — making it difficult for them to collaborate to support mutual clients, according to county business systems analyst Deborah Erb.
With the new system, a social worker can search a client’s name in the system and see when they encountered other service providers — from staying at El Camino Homelessness Organization’s overnight shelters to utilizing county mental health services, Erb said.
This way, social workers can more easily find their clients and bridge gaps in services, according to Erb.
Service providers can also send system-wide messages using the new system.
For example, if a social worker needs to find a client to drive them to the DMV, the social worker can send a message to all service providers to ask where they last saw the client.
Service providers can also leave notes next to a client’s name for other agencies to see. If a client’s goal is to get a driver’s license to apply for CalFresh benefits, a social worker can make a note of that next to the client’s name in the system, Erb said.
Only five agencies can use the current system: the county, the Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County, the 5 Cities Homeless Coalition, El Camino Homeless Organization and Transitions-Mental Health Association, according to Dzvonik.
The new system, however, can enroll 16 agencies, Dzvonik said.
How much does the program cost?
The total cost of the program is $3,422,447, Dzvonik said.
On Tuesday, the board approved a $794,380 contract with Las Vegas-based company Bitfocus to activate the software and administer annual licensing.
The board also approved a $1,991,072 contract with the Institute for Community Alliances, a non-profit based in Iowa, to implement the software and offer professional services.
Both contracts end on Aug. 8, 2028, the staff report said.
The remaining $636,995 will cover costs such as paying staff and licensing fees, Dzvonik said.
The program also comes with $237,340 of annual operational costs starting in 2025, including $172,340 per year to renew the software and $65,000 to pay staff to manage it, the staff report said.
The county will fund $1,974,644 of the project, while Central Coast Medi-Cal provider CenCal will supply $400,000, the staff report said.
A grant of $1,067,803 from the state Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program will fund 32% of the project, the staff report said.
“Though it is expensive, you’ve identified a very clear funding path forward, and so we appreciate that,” Supervisor Jimmy Paulding said at Tuesday’s meeting.
This story was originally published August 8, 2023 at 4:58 PM.
