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Can tech help solve the Los Angeles homeless crisis? Finding shelter may someday be a click away
LOS ANGELES — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks.
Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.”
The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said.
The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening.
“They are not getting the services to the people at the time that those people either need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were evident at a filthy encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers distributing water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She gave out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition provides hot food and services. A small dog bolted out of a tent, frantically barking, while a disheveled man wearing a jacket on a blistering hot day shuffled by a stained mattress.
At the end of the visit Reyes began typing notes into her mobile phone, which would later be retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually copied again into a federal database.
“Anytime you move it from one medium to another, you can have data loss. We know we are not always getting the full picture,” Reyes said. The “victims are the people the system is supposed to serve.”
The technology has sputtered while the homeless population has soared. Some ask how can you combat a problem without reliable data to know what the scope is? An annual tally of homeless people in the city recently found a slight decline in the population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data, and tents and encampments can be seen just about everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pinpointed shortcomings with technology as among the obstacles she faces in homelessness programs and has described the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the plane while flying it.”
She said earlier this year that three to five homeless people die every day on the streets of L.A.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered state agencies to start removing homeless encampments on state land in his boldest action yet following a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces.
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases on the homeless people they interview, including notes taken on paper. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it becomes quickly outdated with the lag time between interviews and when it’s entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, was designed as a desktop application, making it difficult to operate on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because what the case managers do by necessity is they take notes, either on their phones or on scrap pieces of paper or they just try to remember it, and they don’t typically input it until they get back to their desk” hours, days, a week or even longer afterward, Miller said.
Every organization that coordinates services for homeless people uses an HMIS program to comply with data collection and reporting standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at L.A.-based People Assisting the Homeless, a major service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not talk to the HMIS system.
“Once you’re manually double-entering things, it opens the door for all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors are the difference between somebody having shelter and not.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analytics for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates homeless housing and services in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database of 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology upgrades.
For case managers, “just seeing … the general bed availability is challenging,” Kuhn said.
Among other changes is a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and developing a way to measure if timely data is being entered by case workers, Kuhn said.
It’s not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can create delays in collecting data. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority aims for data to be entered in the system within 72 hours, but that benchmark is not always met.
In hopes of filling the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They are constructing a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Since homeless people are transient and difficult to locate for follow-up services, one feature would create a map of places where an individual had been encountered, allowing case managers to narrow the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is linking them with a homeless person in real time. So, a data profile would show services the individual received in the past, medical issues and make it easy to contact health workers, if needed.
As a secondary benefit — if enough agencies and providers agree to participate — the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations, spotlighting where homeless people are moving around the county, or concentrations of where homeless people have gathered.
One key goal for the prototypes: ease of use even for workers with scant digital literacy. Information entered into the app would be immediately unloaded to the database, eliminating the need for redundant reentries while keeping information up to date.
Time is often critical. Once a shelter bed is located, there is a 48-hour window for the spot to be claimed, which Reyes says happens only about half the time. The technology is so inadequate, the coalition sometimes doesn’t learn a spot is open until it has expired.
She has been impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is in testing, and believes it would cut down on the number of people who miss the housing window, as well as create more reliability for people trying to obtain services.
“I’m hoping Better Angels helps us put the human back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
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