In 2018, Cisco and Vacation spot: Dwelling launched into a partnership to deal with homelessness in Santa Clara County. Whereas our major focus was on the event of supportive housing and homelessness prevention, we additionally noticed a chance to leverage expertise to enhance lives. Whereas not a panacea, expertise can play a crucial position in serving to people experiencing homelessness entry important assets, and may improve the effectivity and repair supply of the organizations serving them.
Assessing expertise wants in Santa Clara County’s supportive housing system
We started with a expertise wants evaluation of Santa Clara County’s supportive housing system, which aimed to determine alternatives to leverage knowledge and expertise to strengthen the system of care. The findings had been insightful: each homeless service suppliers and other people receiving providers expressed a necessity for higher communication between employees and purchasers, in addition to the necessity for methods that enable people to entry providers and handle their very own data.
Based mostly on these insights, the evaluation really helpful the event of a client-facing portal. The envisioned software would offer safe entry for e-signatures, appointment scheduling, doc administration, and direct communication between purchasers and suppliers. This laid the inspiration for what would ultimately develop into MyConnectSV.
Constructing MyConnectSV: A collaborative effort
Constructing MyConnectSV was not fast. Vacation spot: Dwelling adopted a considerate and inclusive course of to make sure it was finished proper. Methods-level modifications, equivalent to updating insurance policies round digital releases of knowledge on the County stage, had been vital earlier than implementation might start.
All through the design, growth and testing course of, the Vacation spot: Dwelling workforce constantly engaged service suppliers and other people with lived expertise of homelessness to assist create an answer that would actually meet their wants.
The consequence? A safe, user-friendly platform designed to empower people and streamline service supply.
Key options of MyConnectSV embrace the flexibility to:
- Replace contact data in actual time
- Observe upcoming appointments
- Add and entry private paperwork
- Entry crucial assets, equivalent to meals and medical care data
- Signal and add key paperwork electronically
- Talk immediately with case managers
- Observe their place within the housing queue
- Share their location with case managers by way of a “drop pin” characteristic
These functionalities save weeks of time, forestall missed alternatives, and expedite the journey to secure housing. For people experiencing homelessness, this implies staying related to important assets and assist methods. For service organizations, it means improved outreach and effectivity in delivering care.
The workforce continues to enhance the software by actively listening to customers and incorporating their suggestions into ongoing growth—making certain that MyConnectSV evolves to fulfill the wants of these most impacted.
The broader affect of expertise in homeless providers
The advantages of expertise like MyConnectSV lengthen past time financial savings. It democratizes entry to data, making crucial assets obtainable to all, and is each replicable and scalable. In partnering with Readability by Bitfocus, a platform presently utilized by over 75 communities throughout the nation, we ensured that this client-facing module may very well be simply adopted by Bitfocus customers throughout america.
What started as an area initiative in Santa Clara County is now a replicable, impactful resolution with the potential to make a distinction nationwide. And whereas there’s nonetheless a lot work to be finished, it is a reminder of how expertise, when designed with empathy and function, can really enhance lives.
To be taught extra, try Vacation spot: Dwelling’s newest publication, Breaking Down Obstacles to Housing.
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