One in three U.S. households struggle to afford a place to live. There is a severe shortage of affordable homes, with 6.8 million more units needed to cover extremely low-income families. No single state or county has rental housing where someone working minimum wage full time could afford a two-bedroom apartment. Behind these sobering statistics lies a deeper challenge that every nonprofit, housing agency, government department, and community leader faces daily.
Despite billions of dollars allocated to housing and community development programs each year, thousands still slip through the cracks. Agencies using outdated systems or fragmented tools rather than integrated platforms like HMIS software struggle to keep up.
To understand these problems, we must look at the core issue: a lack of understanding of the entire system.
The Core Issue: A Misalignment of Needs and Systems
The biggest challenge in housing and community development today isn't just the rising cost of housing—it's the disconnect between growing needs and limited systems that can't keep up.
For example, in a state audit, California failed to track the effectiveness of five state-funded programs. There was not enough data on the outcomes and costs to make policy decisions, even for the two programs that were actually deemed successful.
When the data can't show what works and what doesn't, issues pile up. Problems driving challenges in housing and community development include:
- Housing supply continues to fall short of demand in both urban and rural areas.
- Mental health support, job training, and emergency shelter services are often fragmented, with different systems to track each solution.
- Agencies and organizations struggle with outdated tools, such as paper files, spreadsheets, and siloed databases, that prevent coordinated action.
- Many still rely on disconnected methods instead of centralized HMIS systems.
These issues create a fractured system that works in parts rather than as a whole.
Why Housing Instability Should Matter to Everyone
Housing instability affects not just one person or family but entire communities. It has a heavy impact on public health, increasing physical and mental health problems. Cost-burdened families don't have the financial means to spend on necessities such as healthcare, which can increase health issues. Stress or extreme disruption has been shown to lead to chronic disease in childhood, a major issue for children dealing with housing instability. Additionally, overcrowded living conditions are more likely to spread infectious diseases and cause injury.
On top of public health, housing and community development challenges include:
- Education: Children exposed to housing insecurity have lower kindergarten readiness scores.
- Employment and economic stability: People are more likely to lose their jobs due to low-wage work, which comes with fewer job protections and no paid leave. These factors make it difficult to deal with the stress of housing instability.
- Community safety: Strained financial situations may lead to crimes out of desperation, such as theft, burglary, and trespassing. Additionally, extractive landlords make these situations harder by perpetuating poor living conditions for low-income tenants.
- Inequity: Housing instability disproportionately affects marginalized groups, including people of color, immigrants, and low-income families, exacerbating existing social and health inequities.
- Local and state budgets: Lack of affordable housing leads to an increase in the use of emergency shelters, homelessness services, and crisis interventions, all increasing costs.
From small nonprofits to federal housing authorities, every stakeholder is under pressure to do more with less—and prove it.
The System Isn't Broken—It's Just Not Connected
At PlanStreet, we believe the problem isn't a lack of effort or funding. The issue is that critical systems aren't connected, flexible, or responsive to today's challenges.
Think of the housing ecosystem: shelters, case managers, grant writers, city housing offices, mental health professionals, and employment counselors—all serving the same people but often without shared tools or real-time data.
When agencies and programs do not coordinate, residents struggle to access the services needed: housing, healthcare, education, and employment support. These separated pathways to help can actually delay assistance, reduce program effectiveness, and leave vulnerable populations underserved.
That's where PlanStreet's HMIS software for housing and community development makes the difference.
PlanStreet: A Smarter HMIS Platform for Housing & Community Programs
PlanStreet is a modern, cloud-based HMIS and housing case management software. We simplify the case management process, making it easier to keep tabs on every client and the services they receive across different sectors. Our HMIS software is built specifically for:
✅ Nonprofits delivering housing, rehousing, or homelessness prevention services
✅ Local governments managing housing programs and wraparound services
✅ State and federal agencies tracking grant performance and community outcomes
✅ Foundations and housing authorities investing in high-impact, data-driven solutions
Key Capabilities of PlanStreet
Integrated HMIS and Case Management
PlanStreet's case management provides intuitive features to help you gain a complete understanding of the services that your clients need to enroll in, are currently enrolled in, and when they are ready to move forward. This includes:
- Bed Management: Monitor and allocate the amount of available beds, ensuring as many as possible are used every night.
- Client Demographics: Collects critical personal and background information to make informed decisions for service delivery.
- Shelter Occupancy: Helps staff understand the resources available so they can make the best decisions about admissions, transfers, and discharges.
- Supportive Services: Staff can schedule and track services planned for each client, using data to gain an understanding of the outcomes.
- Weatherization: Track energy efficiency improvements made to your client's housing.
HUD-Compliant Reporting and Data Collection
HUD programs will receive 72.6 billion dollars in discretionary funding in 2025 and are one of the biggest funders of housing services across the nation. HUD has extensive reporting requirements, with grantees required to submit plans, reports, and other data for tracking. PlanStreet comes built with HUD program management tools and reports needed to maintain compliance.
Custom Workflows, Real-Time Data, and Dashboards for Your Programs
Not every nonprofit requires the same workflows. At PlanStreet, our interface is highly customized. Our task management software can be tailored to meet the needs of your organization, and you can re-populate common workflows to save time in administration.
Additionally, our real-time data and dashboards can be configured to match your needs. You track the metrics that matter for your organization, such as case count or activity status. This data can appear on your dashboard as soon as you click into the reporting and analytics section. Of course, you can create custom reports at any time to assess specific needs.
Mobile Access for Field Teams
Your field teams are on the go, and their nonprofit housing software should be able to travel with them. PlanStreet works on any device, including tablets and cellphones. This allows caseworkers to schedule services, add case notes, and review data from any location, saving them time. They don't have to drive back to the office and can complete important tasks while it's fresh in their mind.
Built-In Compliance and Coordinated Entry Tools
PlanStreet supports tools like VI-SPDAT, prioritization lists, and intake forms to facilitate coordinated entry and match clients to appropriate services. These can be customized with automated intake. There are forms in PlanStreet's system for you to choose from, or you can configure your own with time-saving data validation and conditionality features.
Real Stories. Real Impact.
You can't just take our word for it--see for yourself how PlanStreet's community development software is helping organizations better use their resources across the country.
PlanStreet's clients have benefitted from our software in the following ways:
- Affordable Living for the Aging: Helping their team keep detailed records, enabling them to monitor their members and create online templates that met requirements set by their contractor.
- Transformation Project: Can now track for their clients who has talked to them, what services they have been provided, and what services have been utilized.
- Center for Housing and Community Studies UNCG: The team can now communicate to their funder reports with any data they are interested in, and they can easily track what needs to be done for a client if one of their co-workers is out of the office.
The Path Forward: Unified, Data-Driven, Human-Centered
Community transformation doesn't happen in isolation. It requires collaboration, clarity, and tools that work just as hard as your team does.
PlanStreet's case management for housing nonprofits connects the dots across your community, empowering organizations like yours to serve more people, scale your efforts, and demonstrate real impact with a robust HMIS system. If your organization is navigating the complexities of housing and community development, PlanStreet can help you:
- Streamline your workflows.
- Improve service coordination through HMIS and case management.
- Meet compliance with ease.
- Prove your impact to funders and stakeholders.
Start the journey to better collaboration and request a demo with the case management experts at PlanStreet today.