Continuum of Care GIS Tools

CoC GIS Shapefiles

These datasets contain the geographic boundaries and funding status information for HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) areas by Year.

HUD is providing these datasets for use by CoC grantees, homeless services planners, and research institutions. Because HUD provides competitive funding for homeless services through a CoC structure that is developed at the local level, outside research based on this structure cannot be accomplished without the provision of the geographic boundaries and related data provided herein. Therefore, this dataset was developed to make the CoC process and funding as transparent as possible to the public.

HUD CoC GIS Toolkit for Communities

The HUD CoC GIS Toolkit for Communities expands the mapping resources available to HUD Exchange users by providing a no-cost downloadable software tool that allows users to interact with professional quality GIS maps.

The toolkit includes data on CoC Boundaries, HUD Geocodes and Preliminary Pro Rata Need (PPRN), U.S. Census Bureau produced demographics, detailed street maps, and more. Toolkit capabilities include mapping and saving addresses and other custom locations, producing custom routes with intermediate waypoints, and producing custom maps with annotation. The toolkit also includes annually updated block group level datasets of American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates that allow communities to explore ACS data on demographic, housing, and economic characteristics at the neighborhood and regional level, as well as Housing Inventory Count (HIC) data visualization by geocode. Users can query the map by program type for sheltered PIT data, beds reported by population served, and more. No special software or map skills beyond basic computer skills are required, meaning users can quickly get started working with maps of their communities.

Please note:

Users can access pre-compiled projects for program years 2020 and prior through a free software product called ArcReader; however, this software has been discontinued by the publisher and is currently only available through a third party download site here.

Beginning with the 2021 program year, the toolkit will be migrated to a new software platform that will expand compatibility to the Android and iOS platforms and be available on Windows Desktop. Prior year GIS Toolkit files will no longer be available after the migration takes place.

Additional information about this tool is available: