HMIS 101: What Are The Collection Points for Common Program Specific Data Elements?

The Program Specific Data Elements (PSDEs) have been developed by HUD to allow organizations that receive funding for homeless services programs run by other Federal Partner agencies (such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)) to use HMIS to meet the statutory and regulatory data collection and reporting requirements of these programs.  HMIS participation is therefore required to fulfill program requirements.

All participants in HMIS must collect and enter the Universal Data elements (UDEs), but only some programs and projects require the collection of additional PSDEs. The HUD Exchange Federal Partners landing page serves as a gateway to the manuals that provide the specific PDSE data collection requirements per program and HMIS project type. 

PSDEs may be collected at a client’s project start, update, annual assessment, project exit and/or at every event occurrence.  The table below provides the “Common Program Specific Data Elements”, which are the PSDEs that are collected across most Federal Partner programs, along with their required collection point(s):