A better way to prioritize scarce housing

HAST™ helps Coordinated Entry systems identify people with the greatest need for scarce housing resources, using a brief assessment plus information already available in HMIS.

Housing systems have to make difficult allocation decisions

When demand for permanent housing exceeds supply, Coordinated Entry systems must decide who should be prioritized. Yet many traditional vulnerability assessments were not designed or validated to predict the outcomes communities care about.

How HAST works

01Brief assessmentA short, focused set of questions at intake.
02HMIS historyService records the system already holds.
03HAST modelTrained on observed outcomes, not summed questionnaire points.
04Priority scoreA single, interpretable score for each household.
05By-Name ListCase conferencing and referral decisions stay with people.

What makes HAST different

Evidence-based

Built from observed outcomes in homelessness data rather than simply adding up questionnaire responses.

Less client burden

Uses information already available in HMIS alongside a focused assessment.

Locally validated

Communities can test HAST using their own historical data before changing their Coordinated Entry process.

Transparent and monitored

Performance, score distributions and demographic patterns can be reviewed over time, so communities can examine how the tool performs across groups.

Case study: Utah

The challenge
Utah wanted a systematic way to support housing prioritization using information available through HMIS.
The approach
SDA worked with Utah partners to develop and implement HAST as a housing-prioritization tool within the Coordinated Entry process.
Implementation
HAST is currently being piloted by the Salt Lake Valley homelessness response system. Utah HMIS lists the “SLVCEH – Housing Prioritization (HAST)” assessment and directs participating agencies to use it alongside the local CE referral process.
Why it matters
Utah shows HAST moving from retrospective modeling into a live, operational Coordinated Entry workflow.

Evaluation underway

SDA is monitoring implementation, score distributions, usage and housing-prioritization outcomes as the pilot develops.

The research behind HAST

HAST builds on more than a decade of work developing and independently evaluating predictive tools in human services, including peer-reviewed studies of how these tools perform once deployed.

Try HAST before adopting

See how HAST would work with your data

Your community does not need to change its Coordinated Entry system to evaluate HAST.

1

Retrospective validation

SDA applies the approach to your historical HMIS and Coordinated Entry data.

2

Compare

See how HAST would have prioritized households compared with your current approach.

3

Decide

Use evidence from your own population to decide whether a pilot makes sense.

Discuss a HAST validation study