Innovation for Homeless Services
Homeless Services
Green River provides and supports Open Path, an open source data integration platform that is:
Open Path is designed by communities to support innovative, data-informed, integrated service delivery.
The platform
Our goal is to provide a data system that can tangibly affect those in need, and enable and amplify the work service providers perform.
Open Path provides tools that make data collection easy and accurate (and follow HUD recommendations and requirements), and give real value to those in need of housing — along with case managers, care coordinators, and program administrators. It supports the integration of care systems, and innovation in how social problems can be addressed.
Under the hood, Open Path is an expansive data warehouse, coordinated access system, and a full-featured, HUD-compliant Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).
Integrated data
Housing, physical health, mental health, substance use, employment, education, incarceration — many factors are involved in someone’s situation, vulnerability, and potential future. A Continuum of Care’s geographic boundary might be statistically valid, yet people are mobile, and individuals can miss opportunities if they travel between regions.
Open Path can combine multiple HMIS data sources, along with other service sector records, for analysis, reporting, and to deliver integrated care.
A shared resource
Open Path has been designed and funded in partnership with the communities that use it.
An open source platform, it can be a vehicle to share solutions and innovations: every feature and enhancement requested or contributed by anyone becomes available to all.
The code is free. And when we provide it as a service, we never charge or limit access by number of users.
Homeless Services
Case Studies & Articles
City of Boston’s Coordinated Access System
Coordinating social services providers in support of homeless people
Saving the Lives of the Homeless and Most Vulnerable During the Pandemic
On March 30, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced the city’s plans to create subsidized housing for one thousand Boston families at heightened risk of being displaced from their homes and left homeless amid the pandemic’s economic fallout.
