County officials Monday unveiled an analytics policy intended to help prevent homelessness, along with an app-based tool designed to help county employees connect unsheltered people to services.
The policy, which was proposed by Board of Supervisors Chairman Nathan Fletcher, was unanimously approved by the board on Tuesday. The county will now take steps to develop a comprehensive integrated data system that allows county employees to evaluate if a person is at risk of becoming homeless and offer support to keep them housed.
"We have to use every opportunity and technology available to prevent homelessness and get people who are currently on the street into housing," Fletcher said during a Monday news conference.
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The proposal also calls for creating a homeless prevention unit within the Office of Homelessness Solutions to conduct direct outreach to individuals.
Helen Robbins-Meyer, county chief administrative officer, will have 180 days to develop an analytics plan, which will also need board approval.
According to Fletcher's office, Los Angeles County government in 2020 also approved using predictive analysis to prevent homelessness.
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Using data from eight L.A. County agencies, outreach workers focused their attention on people and families at greatest risk of losing their homes, and offered help.
Tamera Kohler, CEO of the San Diego Regional Task Force on Homelessness, said it's difficult to determine who will become homeless, "but by using predictive analytics to pinpoint who may become homeless and intervene before someone's on the street, we all benefit -- especially the person who will never end up without a roof over their head.
"This is a project we've supported since the initial conversations began because we know how important preventing people from becoming homeless is," Kohler added.
Barbara Jimenez, community operations officer with the San Diego Department of Homeless Solutions, said the county has just started using a new app-based technology developed by RevTech called the HSEC Outreach App.
The app will let 60 additional county employees -- including park rangers and librarians -- more effectively connect homeless people with services.
Along with streamlining referrals, the app will provide HSEC teams with better real-time tracking of encampments, allowing for a quicker response, Fletcher's office said.
Employees who at times encounter homeless people can access the HSEC App through their phone, laptop or work computer, according to Fletcher's office.
The app allows them to send a referral to the Department of Homeless Solutions and Equitable Communities, requesting that HSEC staff contact the homeless person and provide services. Basic information includes the homeless person's name, a description and additional information.
HSEC staff "triage" the referral and then assign it to an appropriate team member, who could respond the same day depending on the time of referral and submitted information, Fletcher's office said.
A study presented to the County Board of Supervisors showed that 86,000 people in the county are considered extremely low-income and on the brink of becoming homeless.
"It’s really important to interrupt the cycle, find people who are at risk and help them before they become homeless," explained Janey Rountree.
Rountree is on the frontlines of trying to spot homelessness before it happens. She heads the California Policy Lab at UCLA where they've developed a "predictive analytics" computer model.
It uses data from people receiving public benefits from eight Los Angeles County agencies to help determine who may be on the verge of becoming homeless.
"The things that we looked for was a lot of utilization of public benefits, people coming in and out of emergency department rooms or needing crisis stabilization services. Those are the kinds of things that tended to predict being even at higher risk, "said Rountree.
"The reality is we can never lose sight of the need to work on prevention," she said.
In September the San Diego County Board of Supervisors declared homelessness a public health crisis, making it a county priority so that all 18 cities in the county can work together to help tackle the mental and physical health challenges.
It's something Rountree says their model has been able to detect.
"The people that the predictive models are identifying often have complex health and mental health needs, and they're just not going to call the hotline and go through the process of getting enrolled in the program. So you really want multiple strategies," she explained.
Once expanded, the predictive modeling program could help keep roughly 700people off the streets of Los Angeles County, yearly. It's a blueprint San Diego could use after homelessness increased 10% since 2020 to more than 8,400 people.
The California Policy Lab says they have been contacted by San Diego County officials. And though there’s no deal at this time to work together, they say they’re always available as a resource.
