Practitioner Picks: Digital Housing Edition
Practitioner Picks is a new quarterly series designed to add fresh resources to the Digital Government Hub’s library, helping people improve government digital service delivery. Each issue spotlights resources chosen by practitioners in a specific service delivery area along with their insights on why these picks are valuable additions to the Hub. In this edition, our contributors round up resources to help bring housing services into the digital age.
Digital housing is about governments and mission-aligned agencies using digital tools for essential housing services—like digitizing and streamlining applications for affordable housing or responsive waitlists that help connect people to emergency shelter. In this edition of Practitioner Picks, our contributors round up resources to help bring housing services into the digital age.
Say hello to this issue’s contributors!
Roshen Sethna
Former Partner, Exygy
LinkedIn
Roshen Sethna is a strategist and organizational advisor with deep experience driving innovation in the public and social sectors. As a former Partner at Exygy, she led the expansion of the firm’s government and product management practices. While there, she launched Bloom Housing, the company’s flagship, open source affordable housing platform. She has a passion for navigating complex change, launching new initiatives, and shaping institutional behavior (aka stakeholder whispering).
Barry Roeder
Doorway Principal, Bay Area Housing Finance Authority
LinkedIn
After starting a homelessness focused non-profit out of a hackathon, Barry Roeder, left his private sector product management work to take on the task of developing the DAHLIA Affordable Housing Portal for the City of San Francisco, and has since overseen the launch of the region-wide Doorway Housing Portal for the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA). He’s dedicated to making it easier to find and apply for affordable housing, and to using the demand data generated to increase resources for housing-challenged families and individuals.
Barry and Roshen first worked together on the San Francisco DAHLIA Housing Portal in 2015, and later on the San Francisco Bay Area regional Doorway Housing Portal in 2022. Both of these portals help the public search and apply for affordable housing online. Their efforts in affordable housing have led to the expansion of digital and open source tools across a number of jurisdictions.
After 10 years of work together, Barry and Roshen are kicking off a new community of practice for folks doing digital innovation work focused on affordable housing. This community will build connections with and support each other, sharing questions, ideas, hurdles, resources, and more. If you are interested in learning more, please email broeder[at]bayareametro[dot]gov or roshen.sethna[at]gmail[dot]com.
Check out the resources Barry and Roshen added to the Hub…
DAHLIA Project Presentation
This 2015 project presentation outlines the vision, research, and product requirements for DAHLIA, San Francisco’s online platform to centralize and simplify affordable housing searches and applications.
Doorway Housing Seeker Foundation UX Research Findings
This presentation shares user experience research on the challenges, priorities, and opportunities for improving the journey of Bay Area residents seeking affordable housing.
Bridge SF City Spotlight | City of San Francisco & Exygy
This blog post highlights collaboration on DAHLIA, San Francisco’s first digital affordable housing portal launched in 2018.
DAHLIA Project Presentation
This 2015 project presentation outlines the vision, research, and product requirements for DAHLIA, San Francisco’s online platform to centralize and simplify affordable housing searches and applications.
What they said:
“This product requirement document (PRD) was created in 2015 by the pro-bono Google.org team for the City of San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. We utilize this PRD often as an inspirational example of sound vision setting for agile, public sector design and technology projects.”
Doorway Housing Seeker Foundation UX Research Findings
This presentation shares user experience research on the challenges, priorities, and opportunities for improving the journey of Bay Area residents seeking affordable housing.
What they said:
“This deck summarizes the discoveries made during user experience research for the development of the Bay Area regional affordable housing portal known as Doorway. We use it regularly to center our product and policy development work around the needs of housing seekers.”
Bridge SF City Spotlight | City of San Francisco & Exygy
This blog post highlights collaboration on DAHLIA, San Francisco’s first digital affordable housing portal launched in 2018.
What they said:
“Utilizing the case study of the San Francisco DAHLIA housing portal work, this talk outlines the key principles to successfully launch digital products in the public sector. It also explores how data created by these tools can be utilized to assess the effectiveness and impact of policies themselves.”
Check out the existing Hub resources Barry and Roshen consult in their work…
Equitable Affordable Housing in the Digital Age: 8 Ingredients for Leveraging Technology for Access
This report provides guidance on building equitable and user-friendly affordable housing portals, highlighting best practices from platforms like Bloom Housing and Housing Navigator MA.
Bloom Housing: Affordable housing portal
A modern system that helps people learn about, apply for, and gain access to affordable housing. Bloom Housing is an open source platform that digitizes the process of finding and applying for affordable housing, turning a time-consuming paper process into a 15 minute activity from one’s smartphone or computer.
Access Denied: Faulty Automated Background Checks Freeze Out Renters
This reporting explores how algorithms used to screen prospective tenants, including those waiting for public housing, can block renters from housing based on faulty information.
Equitable Affordable Housing in the Digital Age: 8 Ingredients for Leveraging Technology for Access
This report provides guidance on building equitable and user-friendly affordable housing portals, highlighting best practices from platforms like Bloom Housing and Housing Navigator MA.
What they said:
“ This report centers principles that are key to good outcomes, rather than specifying a one size fits all recipe for housing portal development. It also provides case studies of efforts at the forefront of digital housing products.”
Bloom Housing: Affordable housing portal
A modern system that helps people learn about, apply for, and gain access to affordable housing. Bloom Housing is an open source platform that digitizes the process of finding and applying for affordable housing, turning a time-consuming paper process into a 15 minute activity from one’s smartphone or computer.
What they said:
“This deck summarizes the discoveries made during user experience research for the development of the Bay Area regional affordable housing portal known as Doorway. We use it regularly to center our product and policy development work around the needs of housing seekers.”
Access Denied: Faulty Automated Background Checks Freeze Out Renters
This reporting explores how algorithms used to screen prospective tenants, including those waiting for public housing, can block renters from housing based on faulty information.
What they said:
“This report about problematic background checks highlights an important caution regarding the downsides of using automated processes in housing placement, including affordable housing.”
Submit your housing resources to the Hub!
Are you working on digital delivery initiatives related to housing services? Add your own resources to the Hub.
Are you our next Picker?
Interested in being a guest picker for a future issue of Practitioner Picks? Share your focus area with us and why you’d be a great fit for this series.
