Coordinated Entry System
What is Coordinated Entry?
The Coordinated Entry System (CES) serves all of Montgomery County through multiple access points for families and individuals seeking homeless services for permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing and transitional housing. The CES ensures that all people experiencing a housing crisis have fair and equal access and are quickly identified, assessed and connected to housing and homeless assistance based on their strengths and needs.
The CES is a client-centered process that streamlines access to the most appropriate housing intervention for each individual or family experiencing homelessness. Within a Coordinated Entry System, clients are prioritized for housing based on vulnerability through a process that is data-driven and real time.
The CES is publicly advertised through trainings for service providers and information is passed along from emergency shelter and street outreach workers directly to people living on the street. Outreach conducted by emergency shelter and street outreach workers ensures that people who are living on the streets are equally prioritized for assistance.
What is the Goal?
Montgomery County is committed to making the experience of homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring through a broad array of strategies including homeless prevention, street outreach, temporary shelter, housing subsidies, and supportive services.
No-Wrong Door
This year the Continuum of Care (CoC) seeks to create a no-wrong door approach by adding non-traditional partners to the CES process. Ideally, any place where someone experiencing homelessness frequents such as libraries, hospitals and jails, would have trained staff able to conduct a housing screening tool and get the household entered in the housing prioritization registry. This will require decentralizing the access points for entering the homeless system, particularly for families.
Key Documents
- Montgomery County Coordinated Entry System Policies and Procedures (Adopted 1/17/18) (Updated 1/23/18)
- Montgomery County Written Standards
- HUD Publishes Coordinated Entry Requirements and Checklist of Essential Elements
- HUD's New Guidebook on the Core Elements of Coordinated Entry
- US Interagency Council on Homelessness Requirements for Coordinated Entry
