Homeless Services Glossary for Commonly Used Terms

Download Key to Home's Commonly Used Terms(PDF, 448KB)

PROGRAMS & SERVICES

Continuum of Care (CoC)
The CoC Program is designed to promote communitywide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness by providing funding for efforts by nonprofit providers and State and local governments, and promoting access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families. In Oklahoma City, we refer to our CoC as the Key to Home Partnership.

Coordinated Entry System (CES)
A system that standardizes access to housing and services and prioritizes needs. Acts as the community's front door to housing and services for people experiencing homelessness. It organizes partners to work together rather than as separate housing programs.

Early Intervention/Diversion & Rapid Exit
Housing-focused interventions for people experiencing literal homelessness (those with no safe place to sleep tonight). The goal is to resolve homelessness quickly, safely and with minimal resources.

Encampment
Outdoor location with a group of tents, makeshift shelters or other long-term outdoor settlement, where three or more individuals stay.

Encampment Rehousing Initiative
Targeted strategy to house individuals experiencing chronic and unsheltered homelessness living in encampments in an expedited 4-6 week timeframe.

Housing Inventory Count
A point-in-time inventory of provider programs within a CoC that provide beds and units dedicated to serve people experiencing homelessness.

Key to Home Board
The lead decision-making body responsible for managing community planning, coordination, and evaluation to ensure that the homeless response system rapidly ends people’s homelessness permanently, while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused to people and their communities by homelessness. This includes planning for the use of HUD’s CoC resources and coordinating these funds with other relevant resources in the jurisdiction.

Point in Time Count (PIT)
An annual count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.

Street Outreach
Street Outreach activities are designed to meet the immediate needs of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered locations by connecting them with emergency shelter, housing, or critical services, and providing them with urgent, non-facility-based care. The goal of outreach is NOT to move people away from their current location. OKC's community response street outreach teams are OCPD Homeless Outreach Team and Mental Health Association's Community Response Outreach teams.

FUNDING

CoC Grant
The largest and only federally competitive grant designed to promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; to provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, states, Indian Tribes or tribally designated housing entities, and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals, families, persons fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness; to promote access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families, and to optimize self-sufficiency among those experiencing homelessness.

Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG)
The ESG Program is a non-competitive grant funded by a formula based on population. ESG is designed to assist people with quickly regaining stability in permanent housing after experiencing a housing crisis and/or homelessness.

Flex Fund
Privately funded pot of money intended to ensure that a minor but impactful expense does not impede a client from making progress in ending their homelessness. The Flex Fund exists for discretionary payments for one-time fees/needs. While it is not the primary monetary solution to ending homelessness in our continuum, it is a funding source for expenses that stand in between clients and housing.

General Fund
The primary fund used by a government entity. This fund is used to record all resource inflows and outflows that are not associated with special-purpose funds. The money flowing into a general fund is usually derived from a variety of taxes, such as income taxes, sales taxes, use taxes, and lodging taxes.

HOME American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP)
Program designed to provide financial assistance to participating jurisdictions for various housing-related projects. The program aims to benefit qualifying populations and supports a range of services, including homelessness services. This is one-time funding that must be expended by 2030.

Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
Funded through a grant from HUD. The grant provides states with resources and incentives for meeting the emergency and temporary, short-term housing needs of persons with HIV and AIDS.

Private
Funding from foundations, corporations, individuals and other non-governmental agencies to enhance philanthropic goals.

Social Services Grant (SSG)
A City-funded grant that is not limited to serving the needs of homelessness, although a majority of funding is directed toward those needs.

TYPES OF HOMELESSNESS

Chronic Homelessness
A homeless individual with a disability who: lives in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter; and has been homeless and living as described for at least 12 months or on at least 4 separate occasions in the last 3 years, as long as the combined occasions equal at least 12 months and each break in homelessness, separating the occasions included at least 7 consecutive nights of not living as described.

Unsheltered Homelessness
Refers to people whose primary nighttime location is a public or private place not designated for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation (for example, the streets, vehicles or parks).

TYPES OF HOUSING & SHELTER

Affordable Housing
Homes that cost no more than 30 percent of a household's gross income, including rent or mortgage and utilities. This guideline helps ensure that people can cover other basic needs like food, healthcare, transportation and education. The goal is to prevent people from becoming cost-burdened, where too much of their income is spent on housing at the expense of other essentials.

Host Homes
A program that allows youth, ages 15-24, to be matched with volunteers, people they already know, or extended family to live in a home setting while they are connected to supports for independent living and long-term stability. Hosts receive a monthly stipend to assist with the cost of having an additional person in the home, and the young people receive weekly case management support.

Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH)
A homelessness intervention defined by HUD as permanent housing in which housing assistance (e.g., long-term leasing or rental assistance) and supportive services are provided to assist households with at least one member (adult or child) with a disability in achieving housing stability.

Rapid Re-Housing (RRH)
A homelessness intervention defined by HUD as permanent housing that provides short-term (up to 3 months) and medium-term (4 to 24 months) tenant-based rental assistance and supportive services to households experiencing homelessness.

Safe Haven
Low-barrier housing for people with severe mental illness who are not yet ready for more structured programs.

Transitional Housing
Temporary housing (up to 24 months) with supportive services to help people move toward permanent housing.

VOUCHERS AND SUBSIDIES

Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCVP)
Also known as Section 8, HCVP helps low-income families, elderly persons, veterans and disabled individuals afford housing in the private market. Program participants can choose any eligible housing unit, including single-family homes, townhouses, and apartments, with rent partially covered by a subsidy paid directly to the landlord. Housing Choice Vouchers are administered by Public Housing Agencies with funding from HUD.

HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH)
Combines HUD's Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) rental assistance for homeless Veterans with case management and clinical services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). VA provides these services for participating Veterans at VA medical centers (VAMCs), community-based outreach clinics (CBOCs), through VA contractors, or through other VA-designated entities.

Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA)
In TBRA, the program participants locate housing in the private rental market and enter into a lease with the property owner.

Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA)
In PBRA, the recipient or subrecipient contracts for a particular unit or property and the participant then enters a lease with the landlord. If the participant moves, the PBRA stays with the unit for the next eligible participant.

Sponsor-Based Rental Assistance (SBRA)
In SBRA, sponsor agencies rent units in the private market and then sublet the units to program participants. Sponsors may be private nonprofit organizations or community mental health agencies established as nonprofit organizations. If the participant moves, the sponsor may sublease to a different participant or use the SBRA in a different unit with the current participant. SBRA stays with the sponsor.

Public Housing
Affordable rental units owned by the government, managed by PHAs.

Public Housing Agencies (PHAs)
Any State, county, municipality, or other entity authorized to engage in or assist in the development and operation of public housing. The Key to Home Partnership works with the Oklahoma City Housing Authority (OCHA) and the Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency (OHFA).

REPORTING AND SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
HMIS is a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to individuals and families at risk of and experiencing homelessness.

Oklahoma City Susceptibility Estimation (OKCSE)
Assessment tool to ensure that the people served are screened in a consistent manner, using the same process. The OKCSE incorporates questions that provide qualitative data to best determine an individual's vulnerability and identify an appropriate intervention to end their homelessness.

Length of Time
Also known as ‘Days to Housing’, this measures the number of days from when a person completes a housing assessment to when they move into housing.

Returns to Homelessness
Measures the number of people who return to the homeless response system via street outreach or emergency shelter during the first twelve months of independent living after exiting a housing program.

Housing Placements
Measures the number of people who have secured housing and marks the official end of homelessness for that person.

Exit Destinations
Refers to where a person goes after exiting a housing program.

Positive Exits
Exiting a housing program to a safe and stable place to live.

Negative Exits
Exiting a housing program to a situation where the person remains homeless, like to an emergency shelter.

Other Exits
Exiting a housing program for other reasons, including death or incarceration.