Use Homelessness Risk Reduction

The Homelessness Risk Reduction solution delivers a set of capabilities that help you understand where regular reports of homelessness activity may originate in your community and actively monitor regular reports of homelessness so assistance can be offered to individuals in need.

In this topic, you’ll learn how to use the solution by assuming the role of a user and performing the workflows below.

Note:

Use your organization's data or configured apps to follow these workflows.

Report homelessness activity

You will assume the role of public safety staff, or a member of the public, that wants to report homelessness activity observed in a community.

Follow these steps to report homelessness activity.

1. In a browser, go to the Homelessness Activity Reporter survey.
2. In the Homelessness Activity Reporter , provide the following information:

   Parameter	Value
   Activity Observed	Individual
   Details	Type Observed new individual in the park with a tent and dog.
   Observed On	Select a date
   Photo	Add a photo
   Would you like to be contacted for more information?	Select Yes
   Your Name	Type your name
   Phone Number	Type your phone number
   Email	Type your email address
   Observed at	Type location information of where you observed the activity.

3. Click Submit.

Note:

While using the app in the field, you can use ArcGIS Survey123 mobile app to use your current location from your mobile device GPS.

Manage homelessness reports

Health and human services personnel, public safety, and nonprofit organizations can use Homelessness Activity Manager and Homelessness Activity Dashboard to monitor, verify, and assign homelessness reports to agencies responsible for resolving health and safety concerns or providing aid to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

You’ll assume the role of a homelessness program lead that wants to manage reports of homelessness in the community.

1. In a browser, go to the Homelessness Activity Manager.

   The Homelessness Activity Manager shows a list of all reports that were made.

2. In the table, highlight the first record in the table. Verify this is the record you just submitted via the Homelessness Activity Reporter .
3. On the dialog box, in the lower left, click the Edit record button.
4. Change the Status to Submitted, if necessary.
5. In the Assigned To field, select Health and Human Services.

   Note:

   In many cases, individual follow up may be needed to further document and add to ensure you are capturing an accurate representation of homelessness in your community.

6. Scroll down, if necessary, and click Save.

Note:

If you want to automate this process more, you can automatically send emails to individuals that are assigned. Refer to the Survey 123 Webhooks document to learn more.

Visualize homelessness

You’ll assume the role of a health and human service agency, or CoC, director that wants to view the current state of homelessness activity in your community.

1. In a browser, go to the Homelessness Activity Dashboard app.
2. On the left under Type, check Individual. Explore the various filtering capabilities.
3. On the left under Date Observed, choose Last 7 days.

   Note:

   You see the report you submitted in the first workflow.

4. Close the dashboard when you are done exploring the Homelessness Reports.

Identify risk of homelessness

Data analysts can use the Homelessness Risk Reduction ArcGIS Pro project to learn which areas in their community are at risk for generating homelessness and how to prioritize site intervention programs. It leverages authoritative data and uses indicators such as unemployment rate, rental prices, public assistance, health insurance coverage, minority population, and number of veterans to compute a vulnerability to homelessness layer. The resulting risk surface is then used to prioritize intervention program siting. The results of this tool can be used as a foundation for public education and awareness campaigns, operational improvements, and policy discussions across an entire community.

Identify areas at risk

You’ll assume the role of a GIS analyst in a health and human service agency that wants to evaluate where homelessness may originate in a community and use the results to guide policy discussions.

1. Open the Homelessness Risk Reduction ArcGIS Pro project and sign in to your ArcGIS organization.
2. On the View tab, in the Windows group, click Catalog, and click Catalog Pane.
3. In the Catalog pane, expand Tasks and double-click the Homelessness Risk Reduction task.
4. Open the Identify areas at risk of generating homelessness task.

   This task contains steps to help you define the homelessness risk criteria.

5. In the Add risk factor point data step, select the following information.
   • In the Target Features parameter, select Census Naperville.
   • In the Join Features parameter, select Assault.
   • In the Output Feature Class parameter, browse to Databases to open the HomelessnessRiskReduction.gdb and type JoinedAssaults for the feature class in the Name text box.
6. Click Run
7. Click Next Step.
8. Click the Contents tab.
9. Right-click the output layer from the Spatial Join tool and choose Attribute Table.
10. Right-click Join_Count and choose Fields.
11. Change Join_Count field name and field alias to AssaultCount.
12. Delete the TARGET_FID field the tool created.
13. On the Fields tab, in the Changes group, click Save.
14. Close the attribute table and fields table.
15. Click the Tasks tab.
16. Click Next Step to continue.
17. In the Add key demographic data step, fill out the information below.
    • In the Input Features parameter, click the drop-down menu and choose JoinedAssaults.
    • In the Output Feature Class parameter, browse to Databases to open the HomelessRiskReduction.gdb and type EnrichedDemographicData for the feature class in the Name text box.
18. Click Save.
19. To add additional variables, click the Add button and browse to your variable of interest.
20. Click OK. Repeat this step to add the remaining variables.
21. Click the Remove variables button.
22. Click Run.
23. Click Next Step.
24. In the Create homelessness risk surface step, fill out the information below.
    • In the Input Features parameter, click the drop-down menu and select EnrichedDemographicData or your own data set.
    • In the Output Feature Class parameter, browse to Databases to open HomelessnessRiskReduction.gdb and type HomelessnessRiskSurface for the feature class in the Name text box.
25. Click Save.
26. In Risk Factors (High Value), click the drop-down menu and choose all your high to low ranking variables.
27. In Risk Factors (Low Value), click the drop-down menu and choose all your low to high ranking variables.
28. Click Run.

    Note:

    The AssaultCount field was created in a previous step after performing the join.

    Based upon the factors you specified, you will see a new Risk layer appear that ranks the polygons from high to low. You can run the previous task multiple times ranking values differently. In many cases you may want to provide more inputs for data you are tracking in addition to assaults, such as known individuals that your organization has perhaps been assisting, or areas of renting issues.

29. Click the Prioritize prevention program locations task.
30. In Program Design step, fill out the information below.
    • In the Input Features parameter, click the drop-down menu and choose HomelessnessRiskSurface.
    • In the Output Feature Class parameter, browse to Databases to open HomelessRiskReduction.gdb and type VulnerableSurvivorsPrograms for the feature class in the Name text box.
31. Click Save.
32. In the Contributing factors parameter, click the drop-down menu and choose AssaultCount and ACS HHs w/Public Assist Income:Percent.
33. Type Assist Vulnerable Survivors in the Program Name text box.
34. Type a value in the Number of Results text box.
35. Click Run.

    Repeat the above for any other programs. Use the output from your previous run as the Input Features.

36. Click Next Step.

    The result is prioritized locations where a new program can be placed, such as a woman’s shelter.

    Note:

    The next step allows you to finalize the program rankings. You may have many specific programs you want to act upon. Prioritizing helps you better focus your efforts.

37. Share the map as a web layer.

    This allows others in your organization to see the prioritized risk factors.