Following my last post on focusing on one person at a time, one idea stands out. It isn’t another shelter. It’s knowing exactly who needs help—and what is preventing each person from getting housed.

Imagine asking the mayor of a city a simple question:

“Who is homeless in your city tonight?”

Chances are, the answer would be a number.

3,842 people.

7,100 people.

12,000 people.

But here’s a more important question:

Who are they?

Not statistically.

Actually.

What are their names? How long have they been homeless? Are they veterans? Do they have jobs? Do they have housing vouchers? Are they waiting for an apartment? Do they need identification? Are they eligible for benefits they aren’t receiving?

And perhaps most importantly:

What exactly is preventing each person from being housed?

A growing number of communities are discovering that answering those questions can fundamentally change the way we fight homelessness.

The idea is surprisingly simple.

Know every person experiencing homelessness by name.

The Problem With Counting Homelessness

Every year, communities across America conduct what’s known as the Point-in-Time Count.

Volunteers and outreach workers attempt to estimate how many people are experiencing homelessness on a particular night.

The information is valuable.

But there’s an obvious limitation.

Homelessness doesn’t happen one night a year.

People become homeless every day. Other people find housing. Some enter hospitals. Some leave jail. Some lose apartments. Some move to another city. Some return to homelessness.

It’s constantly changing.

Trying to manage homelessness using an annual count is a little like trying to run a hospital by counting the patients once a year.

You might know approximately how big the problem is.

You don’t necessarily know who needs help today.

The “By-Name List”

One organization taking a very different approach is Community Solutions through its Built for Zero initiative.

More than 170 communities have participated in the approach.

The concept at the center of it is called by-name data.

Instead of only counting people, participating communities work toward maintaining comprehensive, continually updated information about the people experiencing homelessness in their community.

With consent and appropriate privacy protections, a person’s record can include information such as:

• Name
• Homelessness history
• Housing needs
• Health needs
• Veteran status
• Current housing status
• Length of time homeless
• Barriers preventing housing

The information is updated at least monthly—and ideally more frequently.

That changes the question from:

“How many homeless people do we have?”

to:

“Who needs to be housed, and what will it take to house them?”

That is a dramatically different way of looking at the problem.

Think About How Powerful That Is

Imagine a community has 1,000 people experiencing homelessness.

Traditional data might tell officials:

1,000 people are homeless.

A robust by-name system might reveal something much more useful:

132 people already have housing vouchers but can’t find landlords.

87 people could potentially return to family members if transportation and mediation were provided.

61 people are veterans who may qualify for VA programs.

43 people have jobs but can’t afford a security deposit.

27 people can’t complete housing applications because they don’t have identification.

18 people have apartments identified but are waiting for inspections.

Those are hypothetical numbers, but they illustrate the difference.

Suddenly, “homelessness” isn’t one enormous problem.

It becomes hundreds of smaller problems that can potentially be solved one at a time.

And Here’s Where It Gets Really Interesting

The data isn’t simply sitting in a government database.

Built for Zero communities bring together organizations that traditionally operate separately—including local government, housing authorities, Continuums of Care, Veterans Affairs, healthcare providers and nonprofits.

Teams can meet regularly, often weekly, to examine what’s happening.

Instead of:

“That’s your client.”

The mentality becomes:

“That’s our community member.”

And instead of each organization measuring the success of its own program, the community starts measuring something much more important:

Is homelessness actually going down?

Measure Homelessness Like a Business Measures Customers

Once you have reliable real-time information, you can start measuring the flow.

How many people became homeless this month?

That’s inflow.

How many people were housed?

That’s outflow.

How many returned to homelessness?

How many are currently unsheltered?

How long does the average person remain homeless?

Where are people getting stuck?

If 72 people became homeless this month but 100 moved into permanent housing, the homeless population is shrinking.

If 100 became homeless and only 50 were housed, the system is falling behind.

That sounds obvious.

But you can’t manage those numbers effectively unless you actually know what’s happening to people as they move through the system.

By-name data makes that possible.

And It Has Worked

This isn’t theoretical.

Communities participating in Built for Zero have demonstrated that coordinated, data-driven systems can dramatically reduce homelessness.

Twelve communities reached what Built for Zero historically called functional zero for veteran homelessness.

Five reached it for chronic homelessness.

And three reached the milestone for both veteran and chronic homelessness:

Rockford, Illinois.
Bergen County, New Jersey.
Abilene, Texas.

Functional zero didn’t literally mean that nobody would ever become homeless again.

It meant the community had reduced homelessness for that population to a level where it was rare and brief—and had built a system capable of resolving new cases as quickly as they appeared.

That’s a profound distinction.

The goal doesn’t have to be creating a magical world in which nobody ever loses housing.

The goal can be creating a community where losing housing doesn’t mean remaining homeless.

But I Think We Can Take This Idea Even Further

Here’s where technology—and particularly AI—could make this model significantly more powerful.

Today the concept is:

Know Everyone By Name.

The next generation could be:

Know Their Name. Know Their Next Step.

Imagine an AI-assisted system examining every active case and identifying the single biggest obstacle preventing that person from getting housed.

Not some vague designation such as:

“Needs housing assistance.”

Something actionable.

For example:

John — needs replacement birth certificate.

Maria — approved for voucher; needs landlord accepting voucher.

David — needs $1,800 security deposit.

Lisa — housing application submitted; inspection hasn’t been scheduled.

Robert — potentially eligible for VA housing assistance; application not completed.

Angela — employed; needs temporary rental assistance.

Then attach three more pieces of information:

Who’s responsible?

What’s the next action?

How long has the case been stuck?

Now you’ve created something very different from a homelessness database.

You’ve created a homelessness resolution system.

Imagine the Monday Morning Meeting

Instead of officials reviewing a PowerPoint presentation about homelessness trends, they open a dashboard.

842 people currently experiencing homelessness.

37 housed last week.

21 newly homeless.

14 people have housing available but are waiting for paperwork.

11 are waiting for identification.

8 are waiting for inspections.

17 need security deposits.

23 voucher holders need landlords.

Then the meeting becomes:

“Why are these 14 people still homeless?”

That’s accountability.

And technology makes that level of accountability increasingly possible.

There Is an Important Privacy Issue

Obviously, putting vulnerable people’s personal information into databases carries serious risks.

A by-name system cannot become a surveillance system.

Community Solutions says information is collected and shared with consent, and communities must follow privacy requirements governing Homeless Management Information Systems.

Access should be limited.

Data should be protected.

People should understand how their information will be used.

And the purpose should remain very clear:

The information exists to help someone get housed—not to monitor or punish them.

Maybe We’ve Been Measuring the Wrong Thing

Governments spend billions of dollars addressing homelessness.

We measure shelter beds.

We measure program participation.

We measure money spent.

We measure annual homeless counts.

Those things matter.

But perhaps the most important number should be much simpler:

How many people did we move from homelessness into stable housing this week?

And right underneath it:

Who is still homeless—and why?

That’s the beauty of the by-name approach.

It takes a massive social problem and puts the focus back where it belongs.

On individual human beings.

A homeless population of 5,000 can feel impossible.

Bill needs an ID.

That’s solvable.

Susan needs a landlord.

That’s solvable.

James needs a deposit.

That’s solvable.

Solve enough individual problems and eventually something remarkable happens.

The big number starts getting smaller.

Maybe the future of fighting homelessness doesn’t begin with asking:

“How many homeless people do we have?”

Maybe it begins with a much more human question:

“What’s their name—and what do they need next?”

It’s literally connecting the dots!