Prairie Public Broadcasting

Oklahoma City group uses identification card program for homeless OKLAHOMA CITY (KOSU) - A group has developed an identification-card system for homeless people in Oklahoma City, which allows agencies serving those people to use their resources more efficiently.
Dan Straughan, the executive director of the city's nonprofit Homeless Alliance, says the Homeless Management Information System also allows agencies to assess the effectiveness of their services and protects the public.
The system allows agencies serving the homeless to gather demographic information in a database and issue photo ID cards to
each homeless person.
That helps the agencies who receive Housing and Urban Development funding to meet a federal requirement to gather data on the homeless in their area.
Twenty local agencies now participate in the system.
Straughan says the idea for the system came after fears developed that an antibiotic-resistant strain of tuberculosis was spreading nationwide. Local health officials, working with city shelters, began testing homeless people for the disease before allowing them to stay for the night.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) © Copyright 2012, KOSU