NEWS

VULNERABILIT Y SCORES BUMPED UP BECAUSE OF COVID-19, ORGANIZATIONS PIVOT

By Hannah Herner

Homeless service providers contribute to a shared database of people experiencing homelessness, each person with a number of points that ranks their level of vulnerability determines their place on a list for housing.

On May 13, three more points were added in response to COVID-19.

Now, a point will be added to the score for people who are 55 and older, people who are literally homeless (meaning they live somewhere not meant for inhabitation), and people with a pre-existing health condition that would make catching the virus especially detrimental.

This is added on to the typical Vulnerability Index - Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool, also known as VI-SPDAT. It gives points based on questions including a history of homelessness, risk of harm, and physical and mental health. The maximum is 17 points, and the higher the score, the more vulnerable the person is considered to be.

This information all goes into the Homeless Management Information System. HMIS is the database that Nashville uses for Coordinated Entry. Communities have to have a coordinated entry process in order to get federal dollars from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. One big caveat for all of this is that places that don’t get federal funds — such

BY HANNAH HERNER

as Nashville Rescue Mission and most of the Room In The Inn programs — don’t have to use HMIS. Their intake processes are separate.

In some communities, scores are bracketed, and correspond directly to what assistance a person is eligible to receive. But in Nashville, it’s more of a dynamic prioritization model that considers any score for a given program, says Sally Lott, coordinated entry manager for the Metro Homeless Impact Division.

The goal of a process like this is to move away from a firstcome-first-served model for distributing resources, and toward taking care of the most vulnerable first. Through the use of VI-SPDAT and HMIS, service providers can share information and resources with one another and prevent a person from having to do intake at multiple sites.

“Every community needs more resources. There isn’t one community that’s like, ‘we’re good on resources!’ So it’s how are we prioritizing people for the resources that we have?” Lott says.

Due to COVID-19, homeless service providers can get verbal consent to put a client’s information into HMIS, and take care of singing forms at a later date. Without the requirement to meet in person and get papers signed, Jayson Karst, outreach specialist for Operation Stand Down, says the organization is actually able to move faster than usual. It’s a priority for the organization to get veterans in safe housing, even if it’s temporary at first, during the time of COVID-19, he says.

Operation Stand Down uses HMIS and the VI-SPDAT to receive federal money under the Transitional Housing Grant and the Supportive Services for Veteran Families. Normally, a veteran can only get the SSVF funds for 90 days, but that’s been extended under COVID-19, too. Karst says having the extra time to secure documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates to apply for jobs and housing has been helpful.

“Even an extra 30 days really opens the door for a lot of things for Operation Stand Down to assist them going forward, he says. “We don’t want to take them off the streets and within 90 days throw them in permanent housing that they can’t afford because they don’t have a job. That just wasn’t conducive to anybody’s living.”

Karst says Operation Stand Down is helping more veterans than typical for them. Many of these veterans are in limbo, unable to work and waiting for delayed disability or social security checks.

These added points for COVID-19 vulnerabilities haven’t been in effect long, but Lott says they’ll continue to evaluate to ensure that Nashville’s most vulnerable are being served — in that order.