Eligible costs. (1) The recipient or subrecipient may use ESG funds to pay the costs of contributing data to the HMIS designated by the Continuum of Care for the area, including the costs of:

Purchasing or leasing computer hardware;

Purchasing software or software licenses;

Purchasing or leasing equipment, including telephones, fax machines, and furniture;

Obtaining technical support;

Leasing office space;

Paying charges for electricity, gas, water, phone service, and high-speed data transmission necessary to operate or contribute data to the HMIS;

Paying salaries for operating HMIS, including:

Completing data entry;

Monitoring and reviewing data quality;

Completing data analysis;

Reporting to the HMIS Lead;

Training staff on using the HMIS or comparable database; and

Implementing and complying with HMIS requirements;

Paying costs of staff to travel to and attend HUD-sponsored and HUD-approved training on HMIS and programs authorized by Title IV of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act;

Paying staff travel costs to conduct intake; and

Paying participation fees charged by the HMIS Lead, if the recipient or subrecipient is not the HMIS Lead. The HMIS Lead is the entity designated by the Continuum of Care to operate the area's HMIS.

If the recipient is the HMIS lead agency, as designated by the Continuum of Care in the most recent fiscal year Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Grants Competition, it may also use ESG funds to pay the costs of:

Hosting and maintaining HMIS software or data;

Backing up, recovering, or repairing HMIS software or data;

Upgrading, customizing, and enhancing the HMIS;

Integrating and warehousing data, including development of a data warehouse for use in aggregating data from subrecipients using multiple software systems;

Administering the system;

Reporting to providers, the Continuum of Care, and HUD; and

Conducting training on using the system or a comparable database, including traveling to the training.

If the subrecipient is a victim services provider or a legal services provider, it may use ESG funds to establish and operate a comparable database that collects client-level data over time (i.e., longitudinal data) and generates unduplicated aggregate reports based on the data. Information entered into a comparable database must not be entered directly into or provided to an HMIS.

General restrictions. Activities funded under this section must comply with HUD's standards on participation, data collection, and reporting under a local HMIS.