An Advocacy Response to HUD's June 2005 "Domestic Violence Provider Participation in Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) Questions & Answers"

The piece operates as both a counterpoint to HUD's June 2005 Q&A as well as a stand-alone explanation of the various aspects of HMIS that an advocate needs to understand to affect safety for survivors of domestic violence. A companion example shows how even minimal, seemingly innocuous, client information can serve to create safety risks for a service-recipient. Advocates may find this information useful for both understanding and describing how "scrambled" data on survivors does not solve the HMIS safety/confidentiality problem. Methods of non-identifiable data collection in the aggregate are also provided.