Updated June 2026 

As ECHO staff wraps up focus groups with people currently experiencing homelessness in our community, the process of redesigning our community’s Coordinated Entry (CE) System is moving from the research to the system design phase. 

Since April, ECHO staff: 

• Completed 1-on-1 interviews with currently unhoused people: ECHO recruited community partners, including members of the Austin Homelessness Advisory Council and VOCAL-TX, to conduct individual interviews with people actively working to end their homelessness. The open-ended interviews captured people’s experiences with the system as it is currently and how a redesigned system could best serve them. 

• Completed focus groups with currently unhoused people: In addition to interviews, staff coordinated with Sunrise Navigation Center and Austin Community Court to host two focus groups for people experiencing homelessness. These sessions were designed to generate discussion around how our system currently works for people, gaps that make the process more difficult, and possible strategies to address those gaps. 

• Presented analysis of CE best practices: Leadership Council heard updates this month from ECHO staff who analyzed findings from interviews with Continuums of Care (CoCs) in comparable communities. These interviews revealed nine themes, including ensuring active navigation through the CE process, a rejection of automation in favor of human decision-making in pairing people with available services, and challenges to address in centering people’s choices for services. Read the full analysis here. 

• Presented analysis of Round 1 provider focus groups: In addition to interview feedback, staff presented findings from focus groups targeted at providers in our Homelessness Response System (HRS). Six key takeaways emerged, including that the Coordinated Assessment (CA) does not reflect a person’s vulnerability, the CE process itself causes harm, and a need for more infrastructure to provide sustaining services after someone moves into housing. Read the full presentation here. 

• Completed Round 2 focus groups with providers: The second round of focus groups presented the findings above to fill in gaps and provide any additional clarity. Providers confirmed what we’d learned from the first round. 

Next steps 

Moving into the system design phase, ECHO staff will finalize analyses of focus groups and interviews with people currently experiencing homelessness. These findings will be synthesized with provider feedback to design a system that will work better for everyone. Additionally, staff will finish collecting data and finalize a full bed inventory across our HRS. 

Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) updates continue through the redesign process to bring fuller capabilities to our new HMIS software. Staff have heard requests from providers who use HMIS for specific updates and elements and ask for patience as the new system evolves. 

In July, ECHO plans to present and anticipates approval of a proposed pilot to Leadership Council for a redesigned CE System. 

This is an exciting moment for our community – an opportunity to remake a key part of our system to work better for everyone who uses it. It can be hard to imagine such a change even happening. It’s important to remember it won’t happen all at once, and it will require constant monitoring and oversight to ensure the system is functioning the way it’s designed. The process to implement, analyze, and adapt will happen over the course of months and years; ECHO is committed to keeping people experiencing homelessness, providers, and our entire community at the center of this process. 

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Updated April 2026

ECHO staff have taken meaningful steps to advance the redesign of our community’s CE System since our system’s governing body, Leadership Council, approved the scope of work in February. These steps include:

1. Literature Review
2. CoC Outreach
3. Round 1 focus groups

Literature Review

Staff reviewed research and best practices around four keys areas: system design, including integration of non-housing services, service navigation models, data utility, best practices, and HUD requirements; assessments, covering areas like acuity tools, housing needs assessments, data coordination, and emerging assessment models; prioritization & referrals, which included reviews of automated processes, housing and non-housing frameworks, and referral matching best practices & processes; and community impact, including fair housing, protected classes, and system access.

CoC Outreach

In addition to reviewing literature, ECHO contacted Continuums of Care (CoCs) in 12 communities across the country that:

• have a similar community profile,
• use the same software, Clarity, to manage their Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)
• utilize system innovations, and/or
• have recently undergone similar system redesigns.

The 12 communities were Houston; Boston; Denver; Seattle; San Diego; Portland, Ore.; Maricopa, Ariz.; Hennepin County, Minn.; Fresno-Madera, Calif.; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami-Dade, Fla.; and Santa Clara, Calif.

Round 1 Focus Groups

ECHO staff engaged 130 stakeholders from around Austin/Travis County in focus groups. These groups which included frontline service providers, specialized programs, and program & system leaders. Staff led conversations and heard feedback around topics including referral systems, inadequacy of current assessments, prioritization, housing and non-housing resource integration, and post-housing service delivery. In tandem, ECHO began gathering 1-on-1 interviews with people currently experiencing homelessness in Austin/Travis County. These interviews, covering people’s individual experiences and challenges navigating our current system, will inform the design of the system.

What’s Next

ECHO staff is leveraging the data and research collected through the first phase of the redesign to create possible frameworks for our community’s new Coordinated Entry System. Round 2 focus groups will continue through May. In these focus groups, ECHO staff will outline possible frameworks for a new system based on the data and research collected through the first phase of the redesign. In addition, ECHO is partnering with Heart of Texas Outreach and members of the Austin Homelessness Advisory Council (AHAC) and VOCAL-TX to continue conducting individual interviews. Feedback from focus groups and further insights from people currently in need of services will help refine and adjust the proposed system.

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Original Post:

What our community stands to gain from reimagining our Coordinated Entry System (CES) in 2026

When someone loses their housing in Austin or Travis County, our local Homelessness Response System (HRS) exists to support and facilitate getting that person back into a stable place to live as quickly as possible. Since 2014, service providers in our HRS have collaborated through a Coordinated Entry System (CES) to achieve this goal alongside thousands of people ending their homelessness. Think of it like the front door to our HRS. 

Our community’s needs have changed a lot since the door was first designed and installed, as has our HRS. At the direction of our Continuum of Care (CoC) governing body, Leadership Council, ECHO is initiating a data-driven process in partnership with our community to redesign Austin/Travis County’s CES to better meet people’s needs in 2026 and beyond. 

What is a CES?

Let’s start with some quick background. A CES provides a no-wrong-door approach to homelessness services. No matter where someone goes to get help – whether it’s a shelter provider, a church providing a safe place to sleep and a warm meal, or an outreach team with connections to extra support – they’re connected to our community’s network of providers. The purpose is to eliminate the need for someone to go from agency to agency to sign up for services. 

The Coordinated Assessment (CA), a single housing needs evaluation where people can apply for most of our community housing programs, is the most well-known part of the CES, but the two are not the same. The CA is one of five core components facilitating organizations working together through a CES. 

Austin/Travis County providers implemented our current CES in 2014 to serve as a connection point to two primary types of permanent housing, Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). ECHO’s role is to train providers to implement the current CES and facilitate those connections to housing programs. 

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began requiring communities receiving federal homelessness funding use such systems.

What’s different in 2026?

Providers are delivering more housing and services as the need has grown: The number of beds available in housing and shelter more than doubled in the decade after we implemented our CES. In 2024 (PDF), our HRS served about 3,800 households in permanent housing with supportive services. When a household moves on from a program or a new program spot becomes available, that housing is offered to the next eligible household. More than 3,000 of those households were housed for the first time that year. 

Still, on any given night, we estimate around 5,000 people are experiencing unsheltered and sheltered homelessness in Austin and Travis County – far more than the number of open spots in existing housing programs. While our community has updated pieces of the CES over the years (like the housing assessment tool providers use), we have done little to shift the overall design of the system to best meet the needs of people working to end their homelessness. 

The community has been providing feedback on the need for such a shift to better match our HRS’s current landscape. Leadership Council – a board made up of people who’ve received services from our HRS, government and nonprofit leaders, direct service providers, and community stakeholders – asked ECHO to lead a process to reimagine and redesign our CES based on that feedback. 

What to expect from a CES redesign

We understand better than ever that the systems and services people experiencing homelessness use are interconnected and can be better leveraged and coordinated to meet people’s needs. The charge from Leadership Council centers a desire for our CES to reflect that interconnectedness. 

Beyond a place to live, people who are homeless need access to primary health care, behavioral health care, job training and placement, and supplies for living outside, like food or a sleeping bag. Street outreach teams are already providing for all those needs and many more in our community; a redesigned CES can efficiently and effectively connect people to these kinds of non-traditional HRS resources in addition to traditional housing programs. 

More than one-third (PDF) of people in the Travis County jail on a night in January 2025 were experiencing homelessness when they were booked; it will take more time and require greater collaboration and new partnerships, but a redesigned CES can also better support folks who will leave jail with nowhere to live. In addition to being a place where people can access all resources available to them, the redesigned CES can be a resource in itself that can support people in meeting their needs as best as possible.

Timeline 

• November 2025: Leadership Council votes to charge ECHO with redesigning our community’s Coordinated Entry System. 

• November 2025-January 2026: ECHO staff develops a scope of work (PDF) for staff to engage with service providers, people who’ve used services in our system, and additional stakeholders to redesign CE in Austin/Travis County. 

• February 2026: Leadership Council votes to approve the scope of work. 

• February-August 2026: ECHO will work with the community to implement the planning process outlined in the scope of work. 

• August 2026 (anticipated): Our community will begin piloting the redesigned CE system. 

• After August 2026: ECHO will continue to collaborate with Leadership Council, people working to end their homelessness, and service providers to monitor the redesigned system and make adjustments as needed to improve our community’s ability to meet people’s needs.