St. Louis CITY C.E.: Documenting Interactions (CLSes)

HMIS-participating Access Points and Housing Projects are required to ensure that the proper information is maintained in the HMIS to reflect that their client is actively participating in the homeless services system and are still interested in being part of the coordinated entry system. Clients who are not actively participating in the coordinated entry system in accordance with the procedures of the St. Louis City Coordinated Entry System will be removed from the prioritization list.

Current Living Situations (CLSes)

In order to remain active in the St. Louis City Coordinated Entry System, clients must have Current Living Situations recorded at least once every 90 days with an appropriate Current Living Situation option selected which indicates the client is still eligible to participate in Coordinated Entry and indicates that the case manager/housing navigator has confirmed with the client that the still wish to participate in C.E. CLSes recorded from within the CITY St. Louis - CITY Coordinated Entry project, along with those recorded by street outreach providers, count toward keeping the client "active" within St. Louis City Coordinated Entry.

Exceptions to documenting Current Living Situations (CLSes)

Except in these circumstances, users must document a Current Living Situation (CLS) in the CITY St. Louis - CITY Coordinated Entry project.

The client or head of household...

is currently staying in an HMIS-participating emergency shelter or transitional housing project which is located within the City CoC.
is currently being served by an HMIS-participating street outreach project which is located within the CoC who is already recording CLSes within the street outreach project.
has been approved for a lateral move/transfer between projects, has been documented within HMIS as a lateral move/transfer client on the prioritization list, and is currently housed in an HMIS-participating rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing project of your agency.

If none of these three criteria are met at the time of the interaction or attempt, then a CLS must be documented at least once every 90 days. Current Living Situation (CLS) must be recorded for all adults for which an interaction occurred directly with the adult client or for which a contact was made with an agency who is part of the CoC but is not an HMIS-participating agency.

Applicable living situations

For heads of household aged 25 and over, only the following living situations will be counted toward keeping the client/household active within coordinated entry.

Place not meant for human habitation
Emergency shelter
Safe haven

For heads of household aged 16-24 there are other situations which may count toward maintaining an active status, but those circumstances are limited.

Recording CLSes

Current Living Situations are documented in a sub-assessment within WellSky Community Services. Each time a direct contact with the adult is made, a CLS must be documented in a new sub-assessment recordset. Instructions for completing a CLS are below the following graphic.

The Current Living Situation sub-assessment should be completed following these guidelines:

1: The Start Date and Information Date should be the same date. The date must match the date the interaction with the client took place. The End Date may either be completed with the same date as the Start and Information Dates or may be left blank.
2: The Current Living Situation (CLS) must be the place that the client, at the moment of the interaction, is residing.
3: For Coordinated Entry, the project which verified/collected the client's current living situation should be selected. This may be a street outreach project, an emergency shelter, a housing provider, or just about any other provider in the system. In the event the provider who verified the information is not listed, please contact the helpdesk for guidance.; Note: The project selected here may appear on the prioritization list as the project which had the most recent contact with the client. This means the project may be asked to assist with locating the client in the event that a housing opening is found for the client.
4: If the location selected in step 2 is not a literally homeless situation (place not meant for habitation, emergency shelter, or safe haven), then this field must be completed. If it is a literally homeless situation, then it should be left blank.
5: These questions should be completed only if the answer to step 4 is "yes." Otherwise they should be left blank.
6: This is an optional field where you can describe the CLS of the client. For example, if the client is staying in a park, you could list the name of the park. This field can also be left blank.

"Approaching Inactive" Status

For those clients added to the prioritization list through the HMIS, the list will indicate when a client has reached or passed 60 days with no information documented in the system to show that the client is actively participating in the homeless service system. In accordance with St. Louis City Coordinated Entry practices, these clients are considered "approaching inactive." Following the procedures in the manual, a minimum number of attempts to contact the client must be made to either confirm that the client is "inactive," return the client to "active" status, or determine that the client cannot be reached.

If the client is confirmed "inactive" or it is determined that the client cannot be reached, then the client must be removed from the prioritization list. Otherwise, an interaction must be documented to reflect that the client is still "active."