Housing assessment without the black box.
HEAT is the Housing Emergency Access Tool. It is a structured housing triage assessment for coordinated entry. It writes down housing needs, works out chronic homelessness status, and names options to discuss. It gives no vulnerability score, and it does not decide who gets housing.
Every determination explains itself.
Public beta in development. Not for production decision making.
Try the assessment preview See how a pilot works
New here? See four sample results first, no questions asked.
- 23 questions everyone is asked
- 37 hard cap, so no one is ever asked more
- 26 to 30 questions the four published samples were asked
- 4 support planning bands, named and never scored
Every number above is read from instrument 0.37.0-pilot. Some are worked out by running the published samples through the real engines. None are typed by hand.
What HEAT produces
One made-up person, put through the same questions and the same engines a real assessment uses. This is the output, not a picture of it.
An adult, sleeping outside as of last night, in month 13 of this period without housing.
- Immediate action
- No immediate emergency identified
- HUD homeless definition
- Category 1: literally homeless
- Chronic homelessness
- Meets the duration test; disabling condition reported, documentation needed
- Documentation still to collect
- 2 documents still to collectlisted with the counting rules behind them
- Support planning level
- Intensive stabilization planning
- Interventions to discuss
- Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH): discuss firstRapid Re-Housing (RRH): considerEmergency shelter: discuss first
On the real page every row here opens on the rule that made it. It shows the answers it read, and what is still missing. Nothing on a result is left unexplained.
What HEAT is, and how it is different
Many housing assessments end in a number. The number then decides who waits, and no one outside can check how it was made. HEAT does not have one.
HEAT asks a published set of questions. It works out what HUD's rules say about the answers. It prints the reasoning beside every result, and it names options to discuss. It never ranks people, and it never picks who gets housing. Principle 7 below says who does.
Ten principles hold that line in place. Each one is kept by something you can check. It is a published rule, a test that fails the build, or a page on this site.
- Placement, not a score. You are never turned into a number. No vulnerability score, no rank, and no queue position exists anywhere in HEAT.
- Person-centered. You choose what to answer, and you can stop at any time.
- Trauma-informed. Safety answers stay off the printed page, and an emergency gets live help first.
- Every determination explains itself. Ask why, and the page tells you. Every rule it uses is published.
- Honest about doubt. When the answers cannot settle it, HEAT says so instead of guessing.
- Nothing you say can screen you out. No answer you give can push you down a list or shut a door.
- The community decides. HEAT does not pick who comes first. Your community's adopted written standards decide who is prioritized, and in what order.
- HUD's rules, named. HEAT follows HUD's rules for these questions, and names them on the page.
- Plain words. Every page says what it means in words a person can read.
- Your answers stay with you. Your answers stay on your device. They are never saved and never sent, and closing the page erases them. HEAT sends one count that an assessment was finished, with no answers in it. Anything you print or save is your own copy and outlives the page.
Read each principle with the mechanism that keeps it. That page also holds the boundary, the two statements we will defend, and the standing controls.
Are you taking a HEAT assessment?
- Your answers stay with you. Principle 10 above says exactly what that means.
- You can decline any question. Every one takes "I do not know" and "I prefer not to answer". Nothing you decline is counted against you.
- There is nothing to pass. No score, no ranking, and no test. HEAT does not decide who gets housing.
- You get something at the end. It is a page you can print, or hand to a housing help office. It says what to do next, and what is still missing.
The questions and your own page are in Spanish too. Las preguntas y su propia página están en español. Your rights are on the governance page. See what your page looks like, with made-up people.
Do not replace your assessment. Test HEAT against it.
Trying HEAT on made-up households decides nothing. Nobody has to sign off on it. Running it beside your current tool, on real households, is your community's call. It comes with terms: your written standards named, a working appeals contact, an agreement about the data. Adopting HEAT is the governance decision.
Where to look next
Nothing above has to be taken on trust. Each of these is a published page, and each one is regenerated or gated by the build.
- Questions. Every question we ask, in the order they are asked, before you answer any of them.
- Evidence register. The evidence behind each one, what it changes, and its known risks. A question with no entry fails the build.
- Governance. Each principle with the mechanism that keeps it. Where the boundary is drawn. Your rights and the rules we hold HEAT to. The standing challenge to find a case HEAT gets wrong.
- HUD alignment. Every requirement in HUD Notice CPD-17-01, mapped to what HEAT does and where to check it. Our reading, not HUD's ruling.
- Changelog. What we changed and why, mistakes included. It is also where this is going, because shipping is what writes it.