2020 HMIS Annual Meeting: A Letter From the HMIS Governing Board
MN HMIS Partners,
On behalf of the HMIS Governing Board, I’d like to thank you for joining us at the HMIS Annual Meeting on 19 October. This year has been uniquely difficult, as our communities have grappled with both the COVID-19 pandemic and a reckoning over the killing of George Floyd and other Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Both highlight the way systemic racism continues to harm our communities and drive outcomes, including who experiences homelessness and how difficult it is to resolve housing crises.
Despite 2020’s many challenges—and perhaps because of them—this year’s HMIS Annual Meeting saw the highest level of participation yet with over 200 stakeholders joining from across the state. This remarkable turnout reflects our communities’ support for HMIS and our shared commitment to prevent and end homelessness. If you weren’t able to join us, we invite you to view the recording, review the presentations, and peruse the attendee responses gathered during the meeting. Here’s what we heard from you and what we’ll be carrying forward into 2021:
The “Data & Disparities” discussion was a highlight of the Annual Meeting, and your desire for us to invest further in that work was evident. The board agrees, and on 14 December voted to create an ad hoc committee, chaired by Cherita Tenhoff, to guide its future work around diversity, equity and inclusion. In addition to providing the board guidance on advancing equity in board leadership and decision making, it will identify options to help stakeholders leverage HMIS data to better understand and counter racial disparities and support antiracism initiatives. The committee will also help the board and its committees develop the capacity to sustain this work going forward, including through budgeting, training and board operations. We’ll only be successful in this work with your help, and we’ll be reaching out in the coming months with an invitation to join us in this effort!
We heard you when you encouraged us to ensure the board better reflects the communities it serves. At the Annual Meeting we previewed a new election process involving the soliciting of an annual slate of candidates to fill end user and at-large seats. This will reduce a key barrier to board service by regularly refreshing the slate of candidates who can be called upon when vacancies occur. This process was combined with an unprecedented analysis of the board’s current membership that benchmarked our racial, ethnic, age, gender, geographic and experiential diversity, and used in our 14 December election to expand the board’s representativeness in needed areas. We are committed to further refining and improving upon this process in the coming months and years.
In addition to ensuring the board is diverse and inclusive, we also want to ensure the board most effectively represents Minnesota’s HMIS stakeholders. This includes evaluating whether the board is sized and seats are allocated appropriately. The board intends to take a close look at its bylaws over the next six months, with the goal of introducing any major changes well in advance of the 2021 Annual Meeting to allow time for review and input.
Strategic Planning: Feedback you provided during and after the Annual Meeting continues to impact the work of the board. We are using that data to shape our work for the upcoming year. While still in development, we know our plan will include efforts to continue our racial equity journey, providing access to a reliable reporting tool, securing state funding for its annual contribution and further supporting the committees so they may carry out the work of the board. We intend to have this plan ready to share by the end of February.
Stay tuned for more information on these initiatives over the course of the year. Watch for an additional communication from ICA that highlights the key areas of work that will be advanced in response to feedback from many Annual Meeting participants who want to better understand and use the HMIS data available to them. We wish we could respond to every question and comment we received during the meeting. You can find answers to some of them here, and we invite you join us at a future Governing Board or committee meeting to dig into others! Our meetings are open to anyone who’d like to participate, committees can be joined at any time and the Governing Board welcomes new members annually. Most of the board’s work is done in our four vibrant committees, and they’re a wonderful place to make a difference. Details can be found here. Thank you for joining us in this work, and be well.
Joel Salzer, Chair, HMIS Governing Board