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Serving:

 Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County
 The Logan Center
 Homelessness Prevention

Mission Statement

EPICS, Engineering Projects in Community Service, is a program designed to give students of varying disciplines the opportunity to apply their respective skills towards a project in the community. Specifically, the HPN, or Homelessness Prevention Network, strives to lend assistance to local homeless shelters and agencies by seeking methods that will facilitate in the exchange of information between agencies.

Many local agencies have voiced concern over the difficulties they often face in admitting guests and making arrangements for their treatment. Among these problems is the fact that many guests bounce from service provider to service provider without addressing the issues that resulted in their condition of homelessness. Other problems encountered include not always knowing a guest's status at other agencies should he or she be discharged and not knowing the whereabouts of a discharged guest should the need to contact them arise. Several of these local agencies have expressed a desire to implement a system by which they could exchange certain information about guests with one another, allowing them to more readily provide the services needed by a given guest.

The HPN strives to assist the agencies in achieving this goal through the implementation of a shared database that will allow each agency to access an agreed-upon set of information about guests. The HPN seeks to provide an effective and secure solution to this while still protecting the confidentiality of guests. This is not a one-time task, but rather a continuing process in which the HPN will always be listening to the agencies' needs and seeking effective solutions. Furthermore, the HPN does not try to limit itself merely to technical aspects, but also hopes to raise community awareness to the problem of homelessness by assisting in public relations and other challenges. For above all else, HPN is dedicated to assisting local agencies in whatever ways possible in the fight in homelessness prevention.

End of the semester