TBIN began as a homeless management information system, but now collects data on an array of health and human service providers and their clients.

In 2000, the United States Congress mandated that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) develop a way of effectively evaluating the scope of homelessness in the United States. In response, HUD mandated that each community implement a HMIS. The Tampa Bay Information Network (TBIN) was original funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to establish a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) for Pinellas County.

• Phase 1 began in April 2003 as a pilot project at the time called the Community Management Information System (CMIS). Ten agencies and program agreed to be the first to try the new information system, help develop protocols, go through training, receive technical support and review the progress made. The pilot project last 6 months. In October 2003, the pilot group got together to assess the software, review the status of the data in the system, and discuss the needs moving forward. It was determined that the need to move forward was great even though their were significant hurdles to over come as displayed in the pilot. At that time, it was determined the project should be scrapped and redesigned.

• Phase 2 began in November 2003. The program and pilot processed were reviewed extensively over the next 5 months. All training was re-designed, new policies were developed, workflow changes were made to the data entry process and the project names was changed.

• Phase 3 began in April 2004. The program now named the Tampa Bay Information Network (TBIN) began providing its new training structure to the pilot ten agencies and recruiting new partners to the project. At this time, HUD released the first HMIS Data and Technical Standards for adherence.

• Phase 4 is set to begin on July 2010. Driving phase 4 is the released revision of the HUD Data Element Standards in April 2010 and the expected release of the revised set of HUD Technical Standards in the Fall of 2010. Also, there have been significant changes to the reauthorized McKinney-Vento Act and the introduction of the Homeless Emergency and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) act. There will be a significant upgrade to the system, across the board retraining of users, and changes to policies and training. This new phase will focus on opening additional shared data elements with a greater focus on data quality and reporting.

TBIN is working towards a fully integrated health and human service community management information system.