Resolving a Housing Referral from Coordinated Entry
Author: ICA | Date Created: January 24th, 2025| Date Updated: May 20th, 2025
Overview
This article is for Housing Provider agencies who are participating the Coordinated Entry system in their CoCs. Priority List Managers create a Coordinated Entry Event (CE Event) when referring a client to a housing opportunity. This article will detail the steps that Housing Providers will follow for acknowledging a referral, and for resolving a referral by documenting that the outcome was either successful and led to program enrollment, or that it was unsuccessful and the client was not housed.
Step-by-Step Video
Click here to watch the video. Press play to begin.
More About This
- In HMIS, housing referral events are acknowledged and resolved in the Clients workspace, via the dedicated CE Event form.
- When resolving a successful referral, a housing program enrollment needs to be created before the CE Event is updated.
Acknowledge Receipt of a Referral
The first step for a housing provider when you have received a Coordinated Entry (CE) referral is to acknowledge that referral in HMIS. Check out this Acknowledging Reciept of a Coordinated Entry Referral article for more instructions!
Resolve a Referral
Depending on what happens once you have done the work to reach out to and meet with the client referred to your housing program, there are two possible outcomes that you will need to record in HMIS. Data entry instructions for what to do in each scenario can be found below.
- Successful Referral: The client has been enrolled in your housing program. (Please note: This is not the same thing as a client moving into housing, which may happen later or not at all.)
- Unsuccessful Referral: The client has not been enrolled in your housing program and will not be.
NOTE: If a client is enrolled into your program but is never successfully placed into housing, their Referral still counts as Successful. However, you will need to return to the referral outcome fields to record the reason the client did not receive housing.
Before recording a referral outcome, you will, as always, want to click on your user icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen to open the Settings sidebar, then make the following selections:
- Workgroup: Whichever applies to your role as a housing provider, usually HMIS User.
- Organization: Your housing program’s organization. (Click here to see a list of programs and their owning organizations)
- When finished, click on Apply.
Successful Referral: Client Enrolled in Housing Program
- Open the record of the client that was referred to your housing program.
- In the Clients workspace, click to start an Intake and follow the steps you've previously learned to complete a Program Enrollment into your housing project for the client.
NOTE: A housing program enrollment needs to be created before the CE Event is updated.
- Once you have completed an intake and program enrollment for the client into your project, in the menu group, expand the Enrollment and Services folder and select CE Event:
- On the Coordinated Entry Event page, find the event in the list for the referral to your housing program and click on its edit icon:
- Complete the following fields:
- Referral Result: Choose Successful referral: client accepted
- Result Date: The date the client was enrolled in your housing program
- Resulting Enrollment: Choose the project enrollment you just created for the client prior to updating the CE Event.
- Click Save when you are finished.
Unsuccessful Referral: Client Not Enrolled in Housing Program
- Open the record of the client that was referred to your housing program.
- In the menu group, expand the Enrollment and Services folder and select CE Event:
- On the Coordinated Entry Event page, find the event in the list for the referral to your housing program and click on its edit icon.
- Complete the following fields:
- Referral Result: Choose the option that best reflects the outcome of the referral:
- Unsuccessful referral: client rejected
- Unsuccessful referral: provider rejected
- Result Date: Record the date it was determined that the referral was unsuccessful.
- If Not Housed, Reason: Select the most appropriate reason from the picklist menu.
- Referral Result: Choose the option that best reflects the outcome of the referral:
- Click Save when you are finished.
Client Enrolled in Housing Program but Not Housed
- If a client is not successfully housed after their enrollment into your program, you will need to record this outcome in HMIS in the client's profile.
- Once in the client's record, expand the Enrollment and Services folder and select CE Event, as was shown above.
- On the Coordinated Entry Event page, find the event in the list for the referral to your housing program and click on its edit icon, as shown above.
- Complete the If Not Housed, Reason field:
Do not make any further edits to the CE event at this point! The Referral Result and Result Date should not change.