How Does The Grove Fit With Coordinated Entry and HMIS?

We get this question often:

“If our community already uses Coordinated Entry and HMIS… why do we need The Grove?”

The answer is simple: The Grove doesn’t replace CES or HMIS—it strengthens what they can’t always reach.

Coordinated Entry Is a Strong Framework—But It’s Not Built for Everyone

Coordinated Entry (CES) and HMIS have done a lot to structure housing referrals and centralize data. But in practice, many communities face persistent challenges:

Slow placements due to bottlenecks, assessments, and prioritization
Limited visibility across providers not formally connected to CES
Exclusion of key partners like domestic violence shelters, hospital-based case managers, and law enforcement
Privacy constraints that limit how some populations (like DV/SA/HT survivors) engage with the system
Lack of agility during weather events or emergency shelter surges

The Grove helps fill these gaps without competing with your CES. It acts as a flexible, real-time tool for coordinated community action.

Who’s Left Out of HMIS and CES? The Grove Brings Them In.

Most CES platforms were not designed to include:

Domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking shelters
Crisis response case managers in emergency departments
Outreach teams not tied to ESG-funded programs
School-based liaisons, hotline advocates, or faith-based providers
Law enforcement or legal system partners

The result? Critical agencies doing frontline work are left out of the loop—and clients experience gaps in placement, communication, or follow-up.

The Grove changes that. It brings the entire community together in one shared, real-time view—without compromising privacy or requiring technical integration.

The Reality: Homelessness Is Being Criminalized

Across the country, new legislation is making it easier to cite or arrest unhoused individuals for sleeping outdoors. Outreach workers, hospital CMs, and law enforcement are increasingly being told:

“If there’s no shelter bed, issue a citation.”

This shift demands new tools.
The Grove gives these teams a non-carceral alternative—a real-time way to see if a shelter bed is available before resorting to enforcement.

The Grove Is Not a Replacement—It’s a Bridge

You can think of The Grove as:

A connection layer between agencies not currently integrated
A communication tool for when speed and visibility are critical
A referral-tracking system that fills the gaps in your CES
A harm reduction approach that gives frontlines more than “try again later”

It doesn’t conflict with CES—it supports and enhances your local system’s goals by extending the reach and improving the response.

Want to See How It Works in Your Region?

💬 Sign up for The Grove today, and move from siloed systems to shared solutions—where more agencies can act, collaborate, and place people into safety faster.

Because when the system leaves someone out, The Grove brings them back in.