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.