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      [HUDX-223-AD] System Performance Measures

      Objective

      This series of articles will empower users to troubleshoot concerns they have identified when running the System Performance Measures (SPM) report.

      Overview of SPM

      The SPM is a HUD report designed to report on a CoC's progress in meeting the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

      The SPM is a very complicated report. Problems you identify are likely the result of one of the following:

      • Data Quality issues
      • Project Set-up problems
      • Misread of the finer points of the SPM specifications

      HUD Resources

      HUD has extensive resources available for CoCs to use for understanding the SPM and how to use the report to inform decision-making in their communities.

      SPM programming specifications are also available. Users are advised to review the specs to understand the report requirements and help troubleshoot problems. 

      The SPM Measures

      The report consists of a series of measures and sub-metrics:

      • Measure 1: Length of Time Persons Remain Homeless
      • Measure 2: The Extent to which Persons who Exit Homelessness to Permanent Housing Destinations Return to Homelessness within 6, 12, and 24 months
      • Measure 3: Number of Homeless Persons 
      • Measure 4: Employment and Income Growth for Homeless Persons in CoC Program-Funded Projects
      • Measure 5: Number of Persons who Become Homeless for the First Time
      • Measure 6: Homeless Prevention and Housing Placement of Persons Defined by Category 3 of HUD's Homeless Definition in CoC Program-funded Projects
        • As of this writing, no HUD-Funded projects are authorized to use the Category 3 homeless definition. This article will not cover Measure 6.
      • Measure 7: Successful Placement from Street Outreach and Successful Placement in or Retention of Permanent Housing

      This article will review specific "gotchas" for each measure. These are learnings from the experience of other users.

      Running the Report

      Report Location

      This report is located in the Administrator Reports section of the Report Library.

      Who Can Run the Report

      System Administrators, and others with the appropriate access level, can run the report.

      Parameters

      The SPM is intended to be run system-wide for a selected CoC. In Clarity, there is an option to limit the report by Agency, Programs, and Project Type.

      1. All measures look across the whole data set with HoH with the selected CoC. Limiting the report will skew the results and may return unexpected results.
      2. If there is a concern with the results of a narrowed-down SPM report, please run it again for the entire system. 
      CoC Choose which CoC to include in the report
       Agency Status All, Active, Inactive
      Program Category(ies)

      Choose which Project Types to include

      • For official submission, choose All
      Agency(ies)

      Choose which Agencies to include

      • For official submission, choose All
      Program Status All, Active, Inactive
      Program(s)

      Choose which Programs to include

      • For official submission, choose All
      Report Date Range

      Usually. this will be the reporting year 10/01/yyyy-9/30/yyyy
      Report Output Mode
      • Do not generate Previous FY for Measure 1a and Measure 1b
      • Full Report
      Report Output Format Web Page, PDF, Excel
      Drilldown Output Format Web Page, PDF, CSV

      Before you do anything else...

      There are two factors to check that affect all or several measures:

      HoH Client CoC Location at Entry

      1. A basic selection criterion is the HoH's Client CoC Location. The Head of Household's CoC must match the CoC selected for the SPM report. No project enrollments will be considered for any of the measures unless the HoH CoC matches the selected CoC for the report run. 
      2. More broadly, if the household has any issues such as two Heads of Households or no Head of Household, then those households will not be included in the report. 
      3. A project set-up setting to check is the selected CoC has also been selected as one of the Program's Continuum of Care served. If not selected, the project will not be included in the report, even if it served clients from the CoC

      Night-by-Night Emergency Shelters

      Emergency Shelters designated as Night-by-Night MUST have Bed Night Services during the reporting period to be included. This requirement specifically affects:

      • Measure 1: Measure 1a and 1b
      • Measure 3: Metric 3.2
      1. If the project does not use Bed Night Services, change the Project's Method of Tracking to "Entry/Exit Date."
      2. If the project does use Bed Night Services, Method 2 - Active Clients by Date of Service logic from the HMIS Standard Reporting Terminology Glossary is applied to the client universe. 

      Look Back Stop Date

      Some measures require looking back at project enrollments that occurred before the reporting period. HUD has implemented a [Lookback Stop Date] = 10/01/2012, or the client's [date of birth], whichever is later. 

      Data Quality Section

      A Data Quality section has been added to the report to address customers' requests. This section is not from the SPM specification document.

       

      Unduplicated persons served (HMIS) returns the count of unique clients per Project Type section universe.

      Total Leavers (HMIS) returns the count of clients that have exited within the report date range. 

      Destination of Don't Know, Refused, or Missing (HMIS) returns a count of leavers with the following: [exit destination] = [8, 9, 99, 30] or [exit destination] is null.

      The general universe to be included in the Data Quality table is as follows: 

      • Household Universe (Note: Households that do not match the criteria below are excluded from the universe.)
        • The HoH's Project Stay is active within the report date range
        • AND the HoH's Project Stay aligns (at any data collection stage) with the selected CoC for the report within the report date range 
        • AND there is no other HoH in the household with an active Project Stay within the report date range
      • Project Stays
        • Each Project Type section within the table is based on the Project Type for a Household's project stay within the report date range. 
        • If a client has more than one project start that matches the conditions for a Project Type selection, the most recent enrollment will be used with the following prioritization built into the logic.
          1. Project Exit Date is null or after the report end date
          2. Project Exit Date is the most recent 
          3. Project Start Date is the most recent

      Drilldown Functionality

      The web page version of the report provides a drill down functionality to identify the clients.

      Understanding the Measures

      Explore these articles specific to each measure:

      Measure 1: Length of Time Homeless

      Measure 2: Returns to Homelessness

      Measure 3: Number of Homeless Persons

      Measure 4: Employment and Income Growth for Homeless Persons in CoC Program-funded Projects

      Measure 5: Number of Persons who Become Homeless for the First Time

      Measure 7: Successful Placement from Street Outreach and Successful Placement in or Retention of Permanent Housing 

      Updated: 02/22/2023