The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is soon implementing the Homeless Management Information Strategies (HMIS). The program's deadline is October and calls for a computerized nationwide database to gather data about the homeless, originally designed to keep an accurate count. The current technical standards require shelters to obtain very specific data: race, social security number, health history, mental health, services rendered, length of stay, and other information. This data will be used for "improving
homeless data collection and analysis at
the local and national levels and
specific statutorily based programmatic
and planning requirements for
addressing homeless needs." HUD provides specific contracting provisions and data entry fields, codes, and instructions for standardization.
Critics around the country are concerned about the plan. HUD has not exactly been clear about how this will be used, and critics claim the security is unlikely to be very robust. Some are concerned that the list could be used to discriminate against the poor for insurance, jobs, housing, or more. A more pressing concern, explicitly dismissed by HUD in the requirements, is that victims of domestic violence need confidentiality. Their data, some claim, could disclose their location and put them in danger, or victims might fear getting help if they must fill out a standard HUD data-entry questionairre for the records of indeterminate purpose. These concerns seem pretty fair, and no one is answering them.
So where are these records going? Who is reponsible for their security? Why does the government need mental health records tied to social security numbers for anyone, ever?