Coordinated Entry
System Overview
October 7, 2025
Hunter Scott
Kaitlin Johnson-Carney
Agenda
2 1. What is the Coordinated Entry System (CES)
2. The Scope of the CES
3. Eligibility vs Prioritization
4. Housing Match Referrals
5. New Housing Providers
6. Contact the CES Team
Coordinated Entry Vision
The vision of the CES is to provide assessment,
prioritization, and matching of people experiencing
homelessness to housing and supportive services in the
most transparent, person-centered, equitable, and
trauma-informed way possible.
31 CES Access Point Partners
Role of HomeFirst as the CES Operator
• Facilitate housing placement process –
o Screen for project eligibility
o Implement community prioritization procedure
o Facilitate CES Case Conference and HMIS
Referrals
• CES communications (housing packet and
newsletter, flyers)
• Partnership development
• Maintain Dynamic Housing Roster
• CES data quality
• CE Quarterly System Performance Evaluation
• CoC strategic planning engagement
• System-wide training and technical assistance
• CES Grievances, Reasonable Accommodations, and
Appeals
• Does not refer to
shelter
• Does not provide
homelessness
prevention
• Does not have control
over housing
opportunity inflow
• Does not have control
over housing program
eligibility
CES Training– 50 attendees on average
Basic CES Trainings:
• CES Access Point Training - in person
• Enhanced Assessment
• CES Overview
• CES Housing Provider
Sample Monthly Training Series Topics:
• Trauma Informed Care
• Harm Reduction
• Mainstream Services
• Housing Problem Solving/Diversion
• Person-Centered Assessment
• Sonoma County Behavioral Health Access
CES Case Conference – on average, 74 people from
44 agencies weekly
Eligibility vs Prioritization
2 Eligibility- The criteria that individual housing projects set to screen in prioritized households. CES does not set eligibility criteria.
Prioritization- The order that households are ranked in, which is used to match people with housing interventions.
Prioritization is determined using assessments conducted by CES Access Points.
Eligibility vs Prioritization
2 Everyone in CES
Everyone who is eligible
Everyone who is
prioritized
Eligibility
2 Each housing provider has their own list of eligibility criteria based on:
• Chronic Homelessness requirement- required eligibility for PSH, which is the highest level of housing intervention within the system. This requirement is set by HUD.
• Property management criteria- background check status, income limits • Funding stream contract criteria- some funding sources have their own eligibility criteria. Local funding could, for example, requires all referred matches to be high emergency service utilizers or enrolled in Sonoma County Behavioral Health services.
Prioritization
2 Ranks households based on urgency and vulnerability to allocate housing resources
Current Coordinated Entry Vulnerability Factors:
• Length of time homeless
• Increased risk of death/ severe health conditions
• Increased risk of victimization
• Institutional utilization
Housing
Match
Referrals
2 At CES Case Conference the proposed referral is reviewed and confirmed based on prioritization and known eligibility.
Providers present at meeting, including clinicians, help assign staff for eligibility coordination.
Prospective referral rejections are reviewed for approval.
CE staff send referral to housing provider
in HMIS.
CE staff send referral connection email,
connecting all assigned staff with
housing provider.
Housing providers contact
assigned staff and participant
with referral, to offer
opportunity and collect
remaining eligibility
documentation.
If participant is found
eligible, referral is in HMIS
and participant moves in.
If participant with referral is
found ineligible or there is
a challenge with referral -
housing provider brings
this to Case Conference to
problem-solve.
New
Housing
Providers
3 • CES and HMIS Training,
sometimes Chronic Homelessness
training
• CES Housing Provider Checklist
• Housing Packet
• Lease up support
Gravenstein Commons
2 3-6 months before lease-up:
• CES assists housing provider to complete Housing Checklist steps • SVDP sends eligibility criteria and details regarding units being filled • CES creates Housing Packet entry
• CES contacted to start identifying potential housing match referrals 1-3 months before lease-up:
• CES collects preference and contact information for each identified referral • CES identifies staff assigned to coordinate each household matched to collect documents
• CES begins sending housing match referrals
• CES assists with problem solving referrals not working out • CES replaces ineligible referrals
Contact the CES Team
Coordinated Entry Director
Kaitlin
Johnson- Carney
Kaitlin.carney@homefirstscc.
org
408-655- 6915
CE Data Analyst and
System Administrator Manny Galvan Manny.galvan@homefirstscc .org
707-890- 0290
CE Training Coordinator Claud Rios [email protected] 707-787- 0919 Housing Systems Coordinator Janae Capeto Janae.capeto@homefirstscc. org
707-298- 8557