The Data Engine to End Homelessness

Outreach Grid (OG) is a coordinated entry data system that enables agencies across a region to collaborate and coordinate on homelessness information on one platform in one language. Our platform is comprised of integrated, easy-to-use tools that enable service agencies to capture information from first contact to housing at the Point of Work.

For the past six years, I, my co-founder, and our team have traveled across America talking to all levels of people who work in homelessness — from frontline staff like outreach workers, case managers, and shelter operators, to those in leadership like members of Congress, mayors, city managers, and police chiefs — to get their perspectives on how we can contribute to ending homelessness as a software company. What we realized was that many of these disparate groups had aligned interests that weren’t being taken into consideration in any of the currently available homeless management information system (HMIS) platforms. HMIS had one purpose, to generate reports for HUD, and it fulfilled that purpose well. Outreach Grid is more than HMIS. Yet, it fulfills the purpose of collecting the right data and generating accurate reports.

Our team conducts all of our work here in Irvine, California – software engineering, community engagement, technical support, marketing, and more. We participated in the CivTech San Antonio residency program in 2019 and the Startup in Residence program in 2016. Our team's background is in civic innovation. We innovated a first-of-its-kind real-time shelter bed reservation system. Two of our most active communities, North Orange County Public Safety Collaborative (NOC PSC) and the City of Riverside, have onboarded 5 shelters with nearly 460 beds. Recently, California Governor Newsom visited the HOPE Center in North Orange County, where he learned how Outreach Grid is bringing real-time data and transparency to homelessness, and PBS released a special highlighting our work in Orange County. We have worked with NOC PSC since late 2018, and the City of Riverside since the summer of 2019.

Thank you for reading,

Tiffany Pang-Cadengo
Co-Founder/CEO