Homeless Response Lab is a team of field practitioners, researchers, evaluators, and analysts working to help homeless response systems understand and improve their outcomes.
Homeless Response Lab grew out of direct experience running and evaluating homeless response systems. We've worked inside CoCs, implemented Housing Problem Solving, built coordinated entry workflows, analyzed HMIS data, and sat in the rooms where system-level decisions get made.
We built this lab because we kept running into the same problem: systems doing the right things weren't getting the right results — and nobody had a structured way to understand why. The ALEA™ framework came out of that question.
The Lab brings together expertise across field practice, research and evaluation methodology, system design and improvement, and data analysis. Consulting services are delivered through our partner, APEX Consultant Group.
Direct experience in street outreach, coordinated entry, shelter operations, and Housing Problem Solving implementation.
Academic research methodology applied to real systems — bringing rigor without jargon to the questions that actually matter.
Experience redesigning coordinated entry systems, program models, governance structures, and feedback loops at the CoC level.
HMIS expertise and data analysis capacity — from performance reporting to longitudinal outcome tracking to metric architecture design.
We're not interested in surface fixes. We look for the structural variables shaping outcomes — because that's where durable change actually happens.
We tell systems what we actually see — not what they want to hear. That requires trust, care, and the willingness to have hard conversations.
Everything we produce — frameworks, tools, training — is designed to be used by practitioners, not filed away as a report nobody reads.
We build your team's ability to sustain the work. The goal is never to make you dependent on us — it's to leave you stronger than we found you.
Individual programs matter — but outcomes are shaped by the system those programs operate within. We keep that bigger picture in view.
Core tools and resources are freely available because the sector needs them. Consulting is how we sustain the work — not how we gatekeep the knowledge.
Whether you have a question about the ALEA™ framework, want to discuss a consulting engagement, or just want to connect with people doing this work — reach out.