Chicago Homeless Shelter Monthly Bed Utilization Metrics

Chicago's Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) tracks monthly shelter bed usage for individuals and families. The dataset includes columns for Percent of Interim Shelter Beds Utilized, Total Overnight Beds, Overnight Shelter Beds Used, Total Interim Beds, and Percent of Shelter Beds Utilized Overnight, organized by Month and Year. It was last updated on 2023-08-14 via the data.cityofchicago.org portal.

Use Cases

• Forecast shelter demand using Month, Year, and Total Overnight Beds for resource planning.
• Analyze seasonal trends in shelter occupancy by comparing Overnight Shelter Beds Used and Interim Shelter Beds Used across months.
• Calculate capacity utilization rates by modeling Percent of Shelter Beds Utilized Overnight against Percent of Interim Shelter Beds Utilized.
• Assess the balance between overnight and interim shelter systems using Total Overnight Beds and Total Interim Beds.

Strengths

• Provides distinct metrics for two shelter types (overnight and interim) with utilization percentages.
• Includes temporal columns (Month, Year) enabling longitudinal analysis.
• Sourced from an official municipal platform (data.cityofchicago.org).

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2023-08-14 15:35:46; freshness should be verified.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

data.cityofchicago.org

Collection Method

Administrative data from the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) and its funded agencies.

Freshness

Last updated 2023-08-14 15:35:46.

Geography

Chicago, Illinois, USA