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Shoring up our Safe Harbors story
Data collection requirements for the Safe Harbors program are even more stringent than reported in Real Change’s Jan. 18 issue.
To qualify for any Seattle, King County or United Way funding — federal, state or local — agencies that help the homeless must convince their clients to answer 90 percent of the biographical questions Safe Harbors collects.
If an agency had 10 questions, for example, it would have to collect an average of nine answers per client.
Safe Harbors Program Manager Sola Plumacher said every agency must record every person who receives services, even if they decline to answer the questions.
But clients are not required to provide any information. That puts agencies in a bind. They cannot force clients to give any information. But they risk losing funding if they cannot persuade clients to cooperate.
Seattle and King County have already lost out on $1 million because their data collection was insufficient, Plumacher said.
Real Change originally reported that Washington state lost that funding. In 2009, Seattle and King County applied for bonus funding but did not receive it because of poor data collection.
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