Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
www.hrsdc.gc.ca
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HIFIS Initiative Background
Helping the Homeless Population
Built on a partnership model between the Government of Canada and communities, the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) Initiative is a component of the federal government’s Homelessness Partnering Strategy. The HIFIS Initiative provides shelters and providers of services to homeless people with assistance in collecting and analyzing data on homelessness and shelter users in Canada.
The HIFIS Initiative, led by a national team of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada employees, works through partnership development, capacity building, information sharing, and research analysis to help communities understand the characteristics of homeless people using shelter services, with a goal of maximizing the impact of the community planning process.
HIFIS Community Coordinators act as liaisons between the Government of Canada and communities and help put in place the tools, training and agreements needed to collect homeless statistics on the homeless population and shelter usage. Shelters that use HIFIS are then able to access the specific data that they have collected and inputted.
At the national level, the HIFIS Initiative is a unique resource. The National Database is built through the signing of data sharing agreements which allow the Government of Canada (GoC) to receive data from shelters, larger not-for profit organizations and various levels of government. The goal is to be able to gather sufficient data for analysis to be able to provide a portrait of shelters and their clientele across Canada. The National Database is only accessible to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada for internal research purposes.
An important component of the Initiative is HIFIS 3 – which is a free, user-friendly software that enables service providers to record client-level information and facilitates their daily operations. Since 1995, the HIFIS software has been evolving based on feedback from users.
