Adelaide is now the first city outside of North America to have certification for its homelessness data, as part of the Adelaide Zero Project.

To secure certification, the Adelaide Zero Project met 29 requirements set out by Community Solutions, including mapping geographic coverage of outreach areas, correct policies and procedures to collect and manage data, and listing of newly identified people sleeping rough.

Endorsed by homelessness experts Community Solutions, the certification means the Adelaide Zero Project has quality data in its By-Name List. A quality list provides three things: a real time snapshot of all persons experiencing homelessness and sleeping rough in the inner city of Adelaide, a means of assessing what type of housing or support intervention each person in a community needs to exit homelessness permanently, allows the project to know the names of anyone sleeping rough in the city and provide support according to their individual needs, instead of simply being a number in the system.

The By-Name list is officially accredited by Community Solutions, a US based organisation helping communities around the world end homelessness and uses data to tackle social problems.

Jake Maguire, Principal at Community Solutions says data is the key to solving homelessness.

“You cannot solve homelessness if you can’t see it and understand how it’s evolving— that’s why Adelaide’s achievement is such a big deal. Eleven communities in the US have now gotten all the way to zero, like Adelaide aims to do. Not one of them did it without achieving this critical data quality milestone,” Maguire says.

The Don Dunstan Foundation’s Executive Director Ritchie Hollands says it is an exciting achievement for Adelaide to be the first city in Australia to have this certification.

“No other community outside of North America has met this foundational standard for understanding, in real-time, who and how many people are sleeping on the streets. The Adelaide Zero Project is extremely proud to take the mantle for our quality homelessness data and continue to lead the country in the work we are doing to house those most vulnerable in our society,” Hollands says.

Neami National Chief Executive Officer Tom Dalton says being the lead agency on behalf of the Adelaide Zero Project for the By-Name List has been an important role for the organisation, to ensure the right support is provided.

“The certification of the By-Name List provides a level of reassurance that we are working with accurate and timely data. Having confidence in the data allows our teams to take action to ensure the right support is available for people sleeping rough as their circumstances change,” says Dalton.

The Adelaide Zero Project has been working with over 40 partners to reach the goal of ‘functional zero’ street homelessness by the end of 2020.

For certification, the AZP has established shared procedures and tools to complete a By-Name List Scorecard. These ensure better coverage of people sleeping rough in the inner city, and data is entered and monitored in real-time across multiple service providers.