Coordinated Entry

The County of Marin and local service providers implemented a national best practice for solving homelessness called Coordinated Entry. Coordinated Entry is all about collaboration. Today, local service providers gather information through a standardized assessment and data sharing process that helps to ensure efficient care coordination. This is particularly important for identifying effective housing interventions.

Coordinated entry is a centralized process through which people experiencing or at risk of homelessness have their strengths and needs quickly assessed and are connected to appropriate community services.

Most communities don’t have enough housing for everyone who needs it. In particular, there are not enough supportive housing units for people experiencing homelessness. To ensure fairness, federal and state regulations require communities to assign supportive housing through Coordinated Entry.

In the past, people experiencing homelessness had to hunt down assistance themselves, hoping they found an agency who might be able to help them. That meant that many very vulnerable people (like people with significant disabilities, memory impairment, or other challenges) were never able to find help.

Coordinated Entry prioritizes people based on need similarly to a hospital emergency room: people with the most severe needs, even if they’re newly assessed, will receive assistance first.

Everyone experiencing homelessness in Marin receives the same kind of assessment to determine what kind of support they need. The assessment score is a guide to determine the best path to housing for each individual or family. Our system considers many factors when prioritizing people for resources, including how long someone has been homeless, medical vulnerabilities, age, history of trauma, and other areas that help determine what kind of housing assistance a person needs.