As the homeless situation in our community increases our Salt Spring Island Housing First program provides a much-needed safety valve for de-escalation and the ability to divert many struggling individuals who would otherwise be problematic in public parks and other areas.  Reluctantly, a lesson we have learned is that the requirements for data collection being made by the funder of Reaching Home: Canada’s Homelessness Strategy program is increasing at such a rapid rate that it impacts the nature of how homelessness support workers do their job.  A greater portion of their time is being spent on administration, and the maintenance of these administrative systems is treated as the highest importance and accountability marker between funder and service provider.  A homelessness outreach worker without a high level of either skill or interest in administration has a very challenging time being successful at their job with these new requirements.  All the new administrative systems and data collection systems are having no apparent impact on improving outcomes for homeless people and are in fact introducing new, unintended barriers.