The question you ask is not the field you fill in.
HMIS intake works best as a conversation: "Where did you stay last night?" instead of "Prior living situation." HMISForms is a free library of data collection forms that keep both layers together: the plain question a person can actually answer, the context that explains why it is being asked, the guidance staff need for edge cases, and the exact FY2026 HMIS element and response the answer maps to. What you see on screen and what prints as a PDF come from one definition and always match.
Forms
Project Start: Guided Intake Interview
Basic identity elements, the prior-living-situation conversation (3.917A), and a trust-first income section (4.02). Every question carries its why, its staff guidance, and its official mapping.
Open the formProject Start: Housing Programs
The same guided interview adapted for persons entering housing and prevention project types.
Street Outreach: Contact and Engagement
A one-page field sheet for tracking outreach contacts, modeled on forms that worked in real CoCs.
Annual Assessment and Update
Income, benefits, insurance, and status changes, asked without making the person restart their story.
Project Exit
Exit destination and follow-up information with the Appendix A destination list done right.
Want one of the planned forms sooner, or a form type not listed? Say so through the Feedback button. Requests shape the build order.
How every question is built
Say. The question in plain language, written to be asked out loud and answered honestly. Sensitive questions explain themselves before they ask.
Why. An explanation you can share with the person: what the answer is used for and what it never affects. Fear produces bad data; honesty about purpose produces better answers.
Record. The official FY2026 HMIS element, field, and response categories, exactly as the Data Dictionary defines them. The conversation can be natural; the recorded data must be precise. Every question shows its mapping so nothing is a black box.
Every question also allows "Client doesn't know" and "Client prefers not to answer." Declining is always recorded honestly and never affects what someone is offered.
Improved by the field
Every form and every question can be flagged from the page it appears on. Every legitimate submission is reviewed; considered does not mean automatically accepted, and popularity never decides correctness. Accepted improvements are credited by name when the contributor wants credit, in the changelog and on the form the contribution improved. No leaderboards, no scores; credit reflects accepted, meaningful contributions.
Feedback goes through the Feedback button on any page. It lands in a review queue with the form version attached, so a report is always traceable to the exact wording it was about.