Celebrating 20 years of service
As the Executive Director of Community Technology Alliance (CTA), I am excited to share with you our unique history. In 2011, we celebrate our 20th anniversary of helping communities prevent homelessness.
Community Technology Alliance (CTA) was founded in 1991 as a direct response to a homeless task force that identified the need for greater collaboration and communication in the delivery of services to homeless and at-risk people in Santa Clara County (SCC). A strong technology partner was required to make the new programs easy to use, efficient and accurate.
The first project we built and administered was Community VoiceMail This service provided our clients a static, reliable contact number to receive messages from potential employers, landlords, case managers and family. I am pleased to share that Community VoiceMail still exists today and CTA provides all the necessary support to keep it functioning and accessible to our expanding client base.
Shortly after our first project, CTA was commissioned to provide a Shelter Bed hotline to nine Bay Area counties for citizens seeking emergency shelter for the night. The hotline required a strong database in order to provide real-time, 24/7 availability, in multiple languages. Like Community Voicemail, Shelter Bed hotline is still active with our support. We successfully connected 8,000 callers to shelters in 2010 alone.
By the mid-1990’s, we were known for our technical abilities and collaborative approach throughout the Bay Area. As service needs grew and technology improved efficiencies, CTA started to receive numerous requests to consult, design, manage and support technical backbones for various service agencies.
Then, in the late 1990’s, HelpSCC was initiated to streamline all the health and human services in SCC into an online, searchable directory. This was the largest effort CTA had done to date and required two years of design and collaboration with many local agencies. We expanded our skills and built a strong solution that still exists today to accommodate approximately 35,0000 searches annually.
Given our success with HelpSCC, we were asked to quickly create a searchable database exclusively for subsidized housing in SCC. We managed to build and launch a resource called HousingSCC within months and supported it through 2010 until a new system was brought online.
Perhaps the most influential activity that greatly extended our agency’s contribution to the community was a congressional mandate in 2000 that needed a specialty solution to support the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The mandate required all communities receiving HUD funding to report (for the first time) an unduplicated count of the clients served. Furthermore, HUD requested the implementation of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) by 2004 or funding would be cut off.
Given our skills and technical knowledge, CTA was assigned the local HMIS implementation by the Santa Clara County Collaborative on Affordable Housing and Homeless Issues (SCCAHHI). We enthusiastically responded to the new opportunity dedicating over a year to the necessary research and planning to meet the extensive requirements. During this time, we collected best practices nationally, analyzed over 60 software packages, and conducted a thorough hardware evaluation to meet implementation, confidentiality and security requirements. In addition, CTA collected stakeholder input throughout the entire project. We were determined to build a comprehensive solution other counties could leverage. And through all this activity, our knowledge continued to expand.
Over the next six years, we assisted several other Bay Area Counties with their HMIS requirements and implementations. By 2007, we were known as the HMIS experts in the Bay Area and in 2008 we received national recognition for our efforts.
Other activities we pursued during this time included leading the Regional Homeless Information Network Operative (RHINO) a project that included eleven Bay Area Counties to build a shared data warehouse of their HMIS information. For over two years, we collaborated, facilitated and actively managed the effort to build a comprehensive solution. We then consulted on how best to use the data sets to yield more results. By 2009, we reported the initial findings across all eleven counties for further analysis. Moving forward, the goal is to understand and collaboratively plan for effective service delivery across the region.
Today, CTA continues to manage and support several Bay Area counties with their HMIS projects. Since 2005, we have served on the national HMIS technical assistance team, providing support and advice to communities in California and across the United States. Recognized by HUD several times for Best Practices, we strive to increase our technical knowledge and expand our solutions to meet the needs of our communities today and tomorrow. We truly are, “mastering technology solutions to prevent homelessness.”
Thank you for your ongoing support and interest.
Best regards,
Jennifer Padgett
Community Technology Alliance Milestones
1991
- Santa Clara Multi Service Center Founded
- Community Voice Mail Launch
- Shelter Bed Hotline Launch
- Section 8 Housing Listing
1995
- Bay Area Homeless Alliance Formed
- Development of HelpSCC Infrastructure Begins
1996
- BAHA award ABAG
2000
- HelpSCC Launch
- HelpSCC Santa Cruz Launch
- Smithsonian Award: Alleviating Homeless Through Technology
- HousingSCC Launch
- U.S. Dept. of Housing & Urban Development Recognition of Best Practices
- Homeless Management Information System Project Development Begins
- HMIS Santa Clara County Launched
- NOVA’s CONNECT! Award: Outstanding Community Partner
2005
- HMIS Monterey & Contra Costa County Launch
- Community Voice Mail migrates to VOIP
- HUD Award for Regional HMIS Collaboration
- 2010 CTA provides HMIS assistance to several communities as a member of HUD’s National HMIS Technical Assistance Team
2006
- CTA Staff serves Katrina Relief in Mississippi
- HelpSCC to HMIS Integration
- Presentation to HMIS National Conference – Denver
- Implementation of HMIS County-wide Swipe Cards
2007
- Regional Homeless Information Network (RHINo) Launched
- RHINo Data Warehouse Built
- Community Technology Alliance designated HUD National Technical Assistance Provider
- 11 Bay Area Counties begin data export info RHINo Data Warehouse
2008
- U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development Award for Outstanding Achievements in Technological Innovations
- Monterey County’s Resource Book Integration to HMIS
- Community Technology Alliance launches CalWORKs Distance Learning project
2009
- Community Technology Alliance takes over Santa Cruz County HMIS Implementation
- CTA launches HMIS administration of HPRP programs in Santa Clara, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties
- CTA key partner in planning National Human Services Data Consortium (NHSDC) National Conference
2010
- CTA presents at several regional forums on HMIS, and assists California communities merging CoCs
- Presentation to National HUD HMIS/HEARTH conference, Denver
2011
- CTA continues to assist California Communities with HPRP and other HUD-related requirements.
- CTA is a key partner in planning NHSDC Spring conference in San Francisco. CTA presents HUD Technical Assistance sessions.
- Completion of the special project with Health Trust to build a custom module onto HMIS and consolidate three databases into one.
- Provides technical assistance to Inn Vision regarding performance measurement and program delivery.