San Francisco has a new system to track every homeless person

A
homeless man in San Francisco holds a sign asking for spare
change.
Justin Sullivan/Getty
Images

• San Francisco’s new tracking system could soon identify
  the history and future needs of every homeless man,
  woman, and child in the city.
• The platform is a much-need solution to the city’s
  outdated and inconsistent databases.
• Homeless tracking systems have showed promise in places
  like Salt Lake City, which reduced its chronic homeless
  population by 91% in a decade.

Not too long ago, San Francisco’s homeless tracking system
consisted of a pile of papers in cardboard boxes. Now, the city
is launching a high-tech platform to identify every homeless
resident and his or her level of need. 

The launch represents a growing effort, led by newly-elected
Mayor London Breed, to crack down on the
city’s visible homeless crisis. San Francisco is one of the

top-ranking cities for homelessness in the country, with an

estimated homeless population of 7,500.

The new system intends to track the health, housing,
jail, and counseling history of every homeless person in the
city. It’s a far cry from the old method, which
spanned 15 different databases across multiple agencies. This
allowed homeless residents to slip through the cracks, with
people who might be registered in one system left out of
others. 

The new solution — known as ONE
System (Online Navigation and Entry System)
— aggregates this data into a single platform.
As part of the test process, the city solicited feedback
from volunteer consultants at Google and other tech
companies. The final product allows homeless outreach
professionals to log in to an app and view the state of
homelessness in the city in real time. But
first, it requires individuals to be registered at shelters
or one of the city’s two walk-in centers, which are run by
Episcopal Community Services.

Upon registration, homeless residents are asked 17
questions that relate to their history of care and future needs.
This helps determine which residents are in dire need of housing,
and which can have their concerns met relatively quickly. By next
year, the database will have collected enough names to begin the
housing placement process for individual residents. 

As of late last year, the system has already begun to track
homeless families throughout the city. According to Jeff
Kositsky, the head of the city’s Department of Homelessness and
Supportive Housing, the platform has slashed wait times for
families at local shelters from one week to just two
days. “I know it’s going to make a difference,” he told
The San Francisco Chronicle. “Maybe not right away, but
it will happen.”

If the systems in other cities are any indication, Kositsky
could be right. In Salt Lake City, where a program
records every time a homeless person receives shelter,
counseling, or another service, the city managed to
reduce chronic homelessness by 91% in a single decade.
That’s a big challenge for San Francisco, but one the city may
now be more equipped to handle. 

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