2024 Data Standards

Measure 3: Number of Homeless Persons (RETIRED)

Note: This article will be removed by Winter 2022 as the System Performance Measures (Beta) will be phased out. Please refer to the following System Performance Measure articles for information and guidance on how to use the new SPM fields in Looker. 

System Performance Measures - New Articles: 


Overview of Measure 3

Measure 3 is a fairly straightforward metric, especially when compared with Measure 1. There are two parts to the measure:

  • Point-in-Time counts of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons
  • Annual counts of sheltered homeless persons, as measured in HMIS

Refer to the HUD System Performance Measures Programming Specifications for details about how the report is programmed.

Keys to Measure 3 Success

Metric 3.1 - Change in PIT counts of sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons

This table is manually completed by the system administrator from the point-in-time count data that was submitted during the HIC/PIT reporting period. This metric is intentionally not programmed into HMIS.

Metric 3.2 - Change in annual counts of sheltered homeless persons in HMIS

This measure reports on counts of clients using HMIS data. Using HMIS data, determine the unduplicated counts of active clients for each of the project types throughout the reporting period:

  • Emergency Shelters
  • Safe Havens
  • Transitional Housing
  • Total unduplicated across all applicable project types

The first step to success in Metric 3.2 is to review the main System Performance Measures article, specifically the "Before you do anything else..." section. If the report is not returning expected results, the problem described in this article.

Why doesn't Measure 3 match Measure 1?

In Metric 3.2, Unduplicated Total sheltered homeless persons, may not equal Measure 1a, Persons in ES, SH, and TH. The main reason is:

  • Measure 1, permanent housing stays overlapping with ES, SH and TH stays will negate the homeless stays
  • Measure 3, permanent housing stays does not negate homeless stays.

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Updated 4/2/2021