Households and the Household Tab
- Desiree Perry
A person needs to be listed in the client's household to be included in that client's enrollments, assessments, and service transactions. Depending on how your agency or CoC builds or manages household composition, the Household Tab may not be an up-to-date list of everyone who lives with the client currently.
When managing household composition, please refer to your agency or CoC procedures on when to add/remove people from a household and if you need to create a household for a single individual.
Once all household members who will be on your entry assessment are listed in the same household, you can move to the next step of the workflow.
Single individuals do not need to have a household created for them to be enrolled in an entry/exit. If your client is a single individual, and your agency/CoC does not require it, you can skip this step.
Households can be created or searched for on either the Summary Tab or the Households Tab.
Confirm that everyone who will be included in your entry assessment is listed in the same household. If all clients are listed, you can begin program enrollments and service transactions for the household.
Even if there are more clients in the household than will be on your entry, you do not need to create a new household or modify existing households (unless that is your agency/CoC procedure). You can just leave these household members unchecked when doing program enrollments and service transactions, and the system will not include them.
Identify which household you will be using for your entry/exit enrollment and services. Sometimes there are multiple households in HMIS.
Click Manage Household
DO NOT click the red minus sign next to any client names. This will remove the client from the household. Click Add/Delete Household Members to add clients to the household.
Click the triangle next to Add Clients to the Household. This will allow you to search the system for other household members and, if they are not found, create new records.
Once found, you can add new household members by clicking on the plus sign next to their name. Once all clients have been added, click Continue.
Make sure the Joined Household* date for each client is on or before your project entry start date. Then Save & Exit.
Search for the other clients you will be adding and make sure that none of those clients have an existing household you could add this client to. If a household already exists, see instructions above for how to add more clients to that household.
If all clients' Households tab say This client is not currently a member of any Households, you can click Start New Household to create one.
Select the appropriate Household Type
Search for and select household members to add to the household. You can select them by clicking the plus sign next to the client’s name.
If you cannot find the client record, you will need to create a new record for that household member by filling out the new client’s information and clicking Add New Client With This Information. See Finding a Client or Creating a New Client Record for more information.
Once the household is complete, click Continue.
Make sure the Joined Household date for each client is on or before your entry start date. You will also want to add the Head of Household and Relationship to Head of Household information. Then Save & Exit at the bottom.
Click Manage Household
Click on the red minus sign next to the household member you would like to remove from the household.
You will be prompted for the date that the client left the household. Please be aware that the date you enter must be AFTER the Joined Household date. Click Save. Then click Save & Exit.
You should no longer see the person you removed in the household: