The Housing Inventory Count (HIC) is a point-in-time inventory of provider programs within your Continuum of Care that provide beds and units dedicated to serve persons who are homeless. The HIC is categorized by five Program Types.

1. Emergency Shelter: Total number of emergency shelter beds and units that are designated to serve people who are homeless and are recognized as part of the formal homeless system.
2. Transitional Housing: Total number of transitional housing beds and units designated to serve people who are homeless and are recognized as part of the formal homeless system.
3. Safe Haven: Total number of Safe Haven beds and units that satisfy HUD’s standards, as identified in the 2009 NOFA.
4. Rapid Re-housing: Total number of rapid re-housing beds and units.
5. Permanent Supportive Housing: Total number of permanent supportive housing beds and units.

The Point-in-Time (PIT) count refers to a sheltered and unsheltered count of homeless persons.  HUD requires that Continuums of Care conduct an annual count of homeless persons who are sheltered in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and Safe Havens on a single night. Continuums of Care also must conduct a count of unsheltered homeless persons every other year (odd numbered years). Counts are based on:

1. Number of persons in households without children;
2. Number of persons in households with at least one adult and one child; and
3. Number of persons in households with only children. This includes only persons age 17 or under, including one-child households, adolescent parents and their children, adolescent siblings, or other household configurations composed only of children.

Counts are further broken down into subpopulation categories including counts of persons who are chronically homeless, persons with severe mental illness, chronic substance abusers, veterans, persons with HIV/AIDS, and victims of domestic violence.

A critical aspect of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, as amended, is a focus on viewing the local homeless response as a coordinated system of homeless assistance options as opposed to homeless assistance programs and funding sources that operate independently in a community. To facilitate this perspective the Act now requires communities to measure their performance as a coordinated system, in addition to analyzing performance by specific projects or project types.

The Act has established a set of selection criteria for HUD to use in awarding CoC funding in section 427 that require CoCs to report to HUD their system-level performance. The intent of these selection criteria are to encourage CoCs, in coordination with ESG Program recipients and all other homeless assistance stakeholders in the community, to regularly measure their progress in meeting the needs of people experiencing homelessness in their community and to report this progress to HUD.

CoCs also play an integral role in Consolidated Plan (Con Plan) jurisdictions’ planning process. They are required to provide the jurisdiction with the information necessary to complete the Con Plan(s) for homeless assistance provided to persons within the CoC’s geographic area that falls within the Con Plan jurisdiction’s geographic area, including data on performance measures. HUD will use the system-level performance information as a competitive element in its annual CoC Program Competition and to gauge the state of the homeless response system nationally.