Housing and Homeless Services

Action Plan

Create a By-Name List

We are currently creating a by-name list for our community. A quality by-name list will allow us to know everyone in our community experiencing homelessness in real time. With this information, we will: 

• Understand the scope of homelessness in our community 
• Understand how people move in and out of our system on an ongoing basis 
• Have accurate information to set goals to reduce homelessness 
• Have accurate information to understand if we are making progress in ending homelessness

Please learn how a by-name list works in real time:

It is critical to note that a by-name list will only be useful to the extent that it is operationalized as a driver of our community’s efforts to reduce and end homelessness.

The key components of a quality by-name list include the following:

• Full Coverage
  • All agencies and programs are represented.
  • List includes people sleeping in shelters and on the streets.
• Person-Level Data
  • Each person has an entry that includes their name, history, health, and housing needs.
  • Each person can be followed through the system.
• Reliability
  • Data balances month over month, just like your checkbook.
  • Changes in actively homeless numbers are accounted for in inflow and outflow.
• Regular Updates
  • List is updated monthly, at a minimum.
  • As people's housing status changes, so do their list entries.

Washoe County's Built for Zero Framework

• In order to begin this process, a Single Adults By-Name List (BNL) scorecard was completed by the Built for Zero Regional Core Team. This scorecard sets out an ambitious framework for building the necessary data management practices and systems coordination to track the movement of everyone experiencing homelessness in communities with the ultimate goal of ending all homelessness.
• Data-driven methods require:
  • Solid data infrastructure
    • Perfect score on all singles BNL scorecard
    • Reliable data
  • Track progress over time: 
    • Median locked in
    • 6 consecutive points above or below the median
• Built for Zero believes that using data to end homelessness starts with a solid data infrastructure to track progress over time, and inform your next move. 
  • Quality Data
    • Quality data gives you the confidence to know that the trends you're seeing in your data are accurate.
  • Regular Reporting
    • Regular reporting gives you a rich archive of data to be able to watch trends over time.
  • Capacity Building
    • Setting up a solid data infrastructure early on increases your staff capacity by limiting time spent cleaning up and refining messy data.

1. The current capacity of our system; this was completed January 2021. Please visit our Housing Capacity Analysis page, to view the full report. 
2. The time / effort involved in implementation of the necessary changes; AND
3. The relative impact the change will have on improving the accuracy and usefulness of our data relative to ending homelessness

What this score means