System Modeling Toolkit and Stella M Module Available on the HUD Exchange and HDX 2.0
With every new funding opportunity, Continuums of Care (CoCs) are being asked to make strategic decisions about resource investments and system and project design. CoCs are expected to use data to make these decisions and manage their homeless response system with the goal of making homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
System Modeling and Stella M
To support this expectation of data-informed leadership, Stella Performance (Stella P) was launched four years ago to help CoCs understand how their current system is serving people experiencing homelessness. Stella P analyzes Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) data submitted in the Longitudinal Systems Analysis (LSA) to help communities understand the performance of their system and develop performance improvement plans, including plans to reduce disparities in who becomes and remains homeless.
To help CoCs go beyond managing their current system to planning an ideal system that fully and equitably meets the needs of all people experiencing homelessness, in the last several years, HUD Technical Assistance (TA) providers have conducted structured, data-informed planning processes with CoCs planning their youth system through Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) and with CoCs facing growth in unsheltered homelessness. This planning process, called system modeling, helps communities develop a plan of the inventory and performance needed for their ideal system. Communities implementing plans developed through system modeling find that it helps them make strategic investment decisions, advocate for new resources, and develop crisis and housing interventions that better meet people’s needs.
Community Planning Resources
The newest tools support system planning with a System Modeling Toolkit and the new Stella Modeling (Stella M) module in the Homelessness Data Exchange (HDX) 2.0. Whether communities want to be more strategic about new funding allocations, address racial disparities, test how small performance changes might lead to big impacts, or overhaul a system that is not effectively meeting the needs of people experiencing homelessness, the System Modeling Toolkit and Stella M can help.
The two complementary tools help CoCs with the technical aspects of creating their models and translating assumptions about the system into implementation plans, as well as guiding the planning process to include key partners and build buy-in. These tools are available to all CoCs:
- System Modeling Toolkit: A suite of eight guides to the system modeling process that support each step of the process from engaging key partners including people with lived experience of homelessness through developing an implementation plan, available on the HUD Exchange.
- Stella M: Assists CoCs with the calculations for system modeling to explore the impact of different assumptions of how to serve people on inventory and cost, available through HDX 2.0.
SNAPS Mailing List Subscription
Stay up to date on HUD’s Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPS) news and updates for grantees and interested stakeholders:
- Sign up for SNAPS Competition Information through HUD.gov
- Sign up for SNAPS Program Information through HUD.gov
- Sign up for SNAPS Technical Assistance Information through the HUD Exchange