In November of 2020 HUD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced a partnership in support of direct uploads of the VA's HOMES-HMIS HUD-VASH Universal Data Elements into HMIS.
WellSky has developed a process to assist you with incorporating your HUD-VASH HOMES data into Community Services via an import directly into your database. This new import process will give you the data that answers a long-standing issue of HMIS bed coverage and will improve and expedite access to homeless program services.
The VA has a report available that contains HUD-VASH data elements for an HMIS import and a mechanism in place for secure email transmission. To obtain the file for your CoC you must follow a few steps:
- Each CoC will need to coordinate with their HMIS Lead to identify a point of contact for each VAMC.
- HMIS leads will then work with the VA homeless program lead to determine what data should be included in your installation of Community Services. This may involve coordination with neighboring CoCs to ensure you are not both entering the same HUD-VASH data in your HMIS.
- The VAMC will send a HUD-VASH export to the point of contact using a secure process.
Once the data is transferred by VA, it is the CoC's responsibility to work with the HMIS Lead to import the data into HMIS. You will transmit your file to WellSky via a secure process and we will import the data directly into WellSky Community Services using the parameters and frequency you determine. HUD recommends that HMIS Leads focus on incorporating this data no later than the 2021 Housing Inventory Count (HIC), so please reach out today!
Please contact support via the Customer Community today to learn more about the process and pricing.
