Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data is designed to better inform homeless policy and decision making at the federal, state, and local levels.
The HEARTH Act, enacted into law on May 20, 2009, requires that all communities have an HMIS with the capacity to collect unduplicated counts of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Through their HMIS, a community should be able to collect information from projects serving individuals and families experiencing homelessness to use as part of their needs analyses and to establish funding priorities. The Act also codifies into law certain data collection requirements integral to HMIS. With enactment of the HEARTH Act, HMIS participation became a statutory requirement for recipients and subrecipients of the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program and Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) funds. he privacy and security standards for HMIS, as described in the 2004 Data and Technical Standards Notice, seek to protect the confidentiality of personal information while allowing for reasonable, responsible, and limited uses and disclosures of data.