Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) & Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF)

A system of web portals to intake public applications for state-wide rental and mortgage relief programs, and process those applications for underwriting and distribution of funds.

These websites serve millions of users and rescued families across America from eviction and foreclosure.

Business Opportunity

HOTB was successful in producing software that saved millions of people’s homes (and earned millions in revenue) during the financial crisis of 2008. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting government assistance programs across all 50 states offered a similar opportunity to produce market-leading software and potentially land several huge contracts with US state governments.

⭐️ The Goal

Win state contracts by…

being the first to market with a powerful, promising minimum viable product (MVP).
demonstrating agility, flexibility, and a high tolerance for short changing deadlines.
producing a templated product which could be sold and customized to many different states but maintain one code base, which would save our team time and money to later spend on powerful feature enhancements.

⏱️ Duration

MVP (0-1): March 2021 → May 2021
Maintenance: May 2021 → Ongoing (2+ years)

👯 Team

Lead Product Designer (Me)
Lead Development Manager / Product Owner
Company President
3 Developers

👩‍💻 Users

Members of State Governments
Processors & Underwriters
Homeowners and Renters across the Country
Bank, Servicer Employees

🧠 Challenges

Extremely limited time, budget, and resources to get to MVP.
All users of this system would be non-technically-savvy. (Need bullet-proof UX.)
All users of this system would be using it because had to, not because they wanted to. (Already frustrated users!)
The nature of government software required us to adapt to urgent changing requirements and requests with little to no notice.
Each state client required unique branding and extensive customization.
No product owner. (Just me and the Development Manager.)

🏆 Results

Won 14 contracts with US states, even stole one from another software provider who the state was disappointed with.
Processed millions of applications throughout the United States and distributed millions of dollars of government assistance funding to applicants. In the state of Alabama alone, by February 2023, $78,157,989 were awarded to 3,880 households.
Dozens of handwritten testimonials from applicants whose homes were saved by this program and the web application that supported it.

Round One (ERA)

The Task

Due to HOTB’s experience producing software for the mortgage industry, we were given the opportunity to build a set of tools for the US states of Georgia and Mississippi. These tools would intake public applications for state-wide rental relief programs, Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA), and process those applications for underwriting and distribution of funds.

It needed:

Three web portals: the landlord applicant side, the tenant applicant side, and the processor side, all distinct user types with subsets of user types within each, their own workflows, and differing competence using a computer.
The ability to quickly and cheaply adapt to urgent changing requirements and requests by states, adding unforeseen features and updates when necessary. (Building an airplane while it’s in the air!)

What I Did

With no budget, time, or precedent for standard UX research, I was given only a limited product brief and about two weeks to work closely with my manager to design a complete MVP for an extremely complex set of systems.

To satisfy the requirements of Georgia and Mississippi, as well as land other major contracts with states, we leaned into our competitive advantage which was SPEED and AGILITY in the face of urgent changing requirements with little to no warning.

Traditional government software providers are slow to accommodate these kinds of hiccups. This would set us apart.

After several all-hands-on-deck marathon design sessions, we were able to present my Figma file to stakeholders in Georgia and Mississippi who gave the thumbs up for development.

Results

Our team was able to get the products successfully launched in weeks.

This greatly outperformed our competitors and impressed other states who were just about to launch another similar initiative.

Round Two (HAF)

The Task

Quickly, we received a new opportunity to build a set of tools for a new program which could have far greater reach — the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). This program would instead target homeowners living in their homes, and potentially be much more complex. This opened the door for us to immediately gather everything we learned from the creation and release of the ERA product and start over fresh. All 50 states were up for grabs! To effectively scale and win those contracts, many new solutions to old problems would need to be introduced.

Lessons Learned from Round One (ERA)

From producing and releasing Georgia and Mississippi’s ERA tools, we learned several lessons that would help us improve HAF.

👨‍👩‍👧 Our users struggled with…

Visibility of system status — or lack thereof. (Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Heuristic #1.) It wasn’t clear at a glance what the status of their application was, what the next step was, and who or what they were waiting on. This was crucially important as some of these users were facing eviction!
Inability to find the information and processes they needed due to sloppy information architecture as a result of light-speed MVP design and feature add-ons.

👨🏾‍💼 Our government clients struggled with…

Limited feature set. This MVP only had what they absolutely needed.
Every tiny change required a developer. Client-side customization tools did not exist. Even something as small as a copy change on the public landing page required them to request it through us and wait for a developer to do the work which could be weeks.

👨🏽‍💼 Customer Service struggled with…

Chaos in too many requests. With no ability for clients to customize anything themselves, they needed to take all of the feedback and turn it into action items for the development team, a complex game of telephone which often led to mistakes.

👩🏽‍💻 Developers struggled with…

Two different frustratingly similar but unique code-bases. Updates to one did not carry over to the other so all site-wide feature updates needed to be done twice! This would not scale if we were looking at winning a double-digit number of state contracts.
Enormous tech debt as a result of urgent short-term-thinking.

🙋🏻‍♀️ The Designer (me) struggled with…

Enormous design debt as a result of urgent short-term-thinking. None of the features appear to go together. It was laid out poorly because things were released one-by-one instead of all at once. Since people were actively using it, a design overhaul was out of the question. By the end, the whole product felt like a mess.

Opportunities & Success Criteria

I asked myself how might we introduce some system-level solutions which would reduce all of our stakeholders pain points?

❌

Many States = Many Separate Code-Bases

✅

Many States = One Templated Code-Base

❌

Short-Term "Band-Aid Solution" Thinking

✅

Long-term Scalable Thinking

❌

Developer Required for Customization

✅

Powerful, User-Led Customization

❌

Poor Visibility of System Status

✅

Clear, Actionable Display of Status and Upcoming Steps

From here on, I made sure to operate in pursuit of these goals.

Getting to Know Our User Types

The HAF application would have a complex network of user types, each with unique goals and pain points. We created this diagram in FigJam.

What I Did

Think big.
Think ahead.
Think like a bank.

1️⃣ Think Big: Theming & Configuration that Scales

The public-facing landing pages were costing our development team a disproportionate amount of labor.To better smooth over the process on onboarding new states and setting up their websites, we decided to limit their options and present them more clearly.I created a set of configurable “blocks” which states could choose to create their landing pages.This reduced the amount of work required by me, the designer, and the customer service representatives who were tasked with collecting the information from states for each landing page.View fullsize

We also invented a section called App Config where admin-level users could do many things to customize their own application, including…Write new copy which would affect the public landing page.Create checklists which their processors and underwriters would use.Input all the data to populate various dropdown selectors within applicant forms.Much more!

2️⃣ Think Ahead: Reports, Version History, & Audit Logs

Due to legal requirements from multiple different regulating agencies, the tool needed to include…

Robust reporting capabilities
A history of all save events by all processors and underwriters on all applications so the work can be effectively tracked and audited.

3️⃣ Think Like A Bank: Common Data Files (CDF) & Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

The Common Data File process — used by banks for accepting and distributing funds to applicants — was an extremely tough one for me to get my head around. This was an area most of our competitors opted to skip, or offload to the standard email-and-paper workflow. Building this into our tool put us far ahead of the competition.

But we went one step further. We also created a third tool, the Servicer Portal, where banks could log in themselves and drop off files through an SFTP server (like a native Filezilla) where HAF processors could immediately access them.

Our in-house processing team literally jumped for joy when this feature was released, saving them countless hours and messy back-and-forth file emails to banks.

Results

🏆 14 Unique Live Products (with 2+ Web Portals Each) Which Serve Millions of Users

The design of each landing page reflects the way each state government team has chosen to customize it themselves.

Click the program logo to see the live landing page and application portal!

🏆 In the state of Alabama, by February 2023…

🏆 Unprompted Written Testimonials from Applicants in Mississippi

"Letter of Appreciation and Gratitude,

I am writing this letter to show my deepest gratitude and appreciation for your assistance in saving my children and I home. Although, a letter would not suffice, yet it is a small gesture to express my sincere thankfulness. You have been a huge blessing within my household. Your staff has been very professional and empathetic towards our situation. Your organization’s commitment to help others has made a big difference many people’s life and I can personally attest to that. I can continue raising my children and making memorable memories in our home. Words cannot express how thankful I am you were there for me when I needed someone most. May God bless each of your staff and the organization for all you do.

Sincerely, MS Homeowner"
"To the Home Saver Plus - HAF Team!

We are so grateful to your team for providing the much-needed assistance we needed during this hectic period of our lives. Without your proper guidance and immediate action, we might have lost our home! We don't even have the words to show our heartfelt appreciation for the work you all have put in over the past few months to get this secured for us. Ms. Tamara and Ms. Tina were informative and very, very, very helpful in assisting us with this process. Our number one goal is to keep our home and you all have given us the opportunity to do that.

To have someone that is there to assist you and help in any way can mean a lot to us. We were treated just and fairly, and we were never made to feel less than others because we were in need of help. It was the willingness to help and assist us that brought so much comfort when it came to this process. We have been through so much over the past few years and the last thing we wanted was to have to tell our five children that we lost our home. But God is faithful to have people and programs like this in place to assist families like ours who due to no fault of our own experienced hardship and setbacks! We're beyond grateful that we can have a different conversation with them about how God blessed us through this program. Our prayer is that this program never stops! There are many families that need this type of help. To those on this team, keep going, keep on blessing, and keep helping families to sustain normalcy in these forever-changing times. Again, thank you all so much!

Moss Family"
"MS HAF Team,

Thank you again for reviewing my file. As per our conversation, I have fasted and prayed that God would show favor on the decision to get assistance with my mortgage. Our business has been crippled due to Covid and the economy. I literally parked across the street from your building every day this week around 11 am and would pray to ask God for HIS favor on your decision. Today as soon as I was done praying, I was not more than 2 minutes down the road when I received a call from you approving my application. This is nothing short of a miracle! All glory now goes to God! He is real!

Chris and Family"
"MS HAF Team,

I am writing to send a sincere thank you for all the assistance you have provided to me and my family. I was dealing with some financial issues and with your services I have been able to make it through some of those hardships. I honestly do not know what we would have done without your organization. Your agency is trustworthy and reliable.

I am positive the future will continue to challenge all of us financially, but thanks to The Mississippi Home Savers Program that I and other families can have peace of mind knowing your organization is there to render assistance. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, there are no words to express how deeply I appreciate all that you have done for me and my family."
"Letter of Appreciation and Gratitude,

I am writing this letter to show my deepest gratitude and appreciation for your assistance in saving my children and I home. Although, a letter would not suffice, yet it is a small gesture to express my sincere thankfulness. You have been a huge blessing within my household. Your staff has been very professional and empathetic towards our situation. Your organization’s commitment to help others has made a big difference many people’s life and I can personally attest to that. I can continue raising my children and making memorable memories in our home. Words cannot express how thankful I am you were there for me when I needed someone most. May God bless each of your staff and the organization for all you do.

Sincerely, MS Homeowner"
"To the Home Saver Plus - HAF Team!

We are so grateful to your team for providing the much-needed assistance we needed during this hectic period of our lives. Without your proper guidance and immediate action, we might have lost our home! We don't even have the words to show our heartfelt appreciation for the work you all have put in over the past few months to get this secured for us. Ms. Tamara and Ms. Tina were informative and very, very, very helpful in assisting us with this process. Our number one goal is to keep our home and you all have given us the opportunity to do that.

To have someone that is there to assist you and help in any way can mean a lot to us. We were treated just and fairly, and we were never made to feel less than others because we were in need of help. It was the willingness to help and assist us that brought so much comfort when it came to this process. We have been through so much over the past few years and the last thing we wanted was to have to tell our five children that we lost our home. But God is faithful to have people and programs like this in place to assist families like ours who due to no fault of our own experienced hardship and setbacks! We're beyond grateful that we can have a different conversation with them about how God blessed us through this program. Our prayer is that this program never stops! There are many families that need this type of help. To those on this team, keep going, keep on blessing, and keep helping families to sustain normalcy in these forever-changing times. Again, thank you all so much!

Moss Family"
"MS HAF Team,

Thank you again for reviewing my file. As per our conversation, I have fasted and prayed that God would show favor on the decision to get assistance with my mortgage. Our business has been crippled due to Covid and the economy. I literally parked across the street from your building every day this week around 11 am and would pray to ask God for HIS favor on your decision. Today as soon as I was done praying, I was not more than 2 minutes down the road when I received a call from you approving my application. This is nothing short of a miracle! All glory now goes to God! He is real!

Chris and Family"
"MS HAF Team,

I am writing to send a sincere thank you for all the assistance you have provided to me and my family. I was dealing with some financial issues and with your services I have been able to make it through some of those hardships. I honestly do not know what we would have done without your organization. Your agency is trustworthy and reliable.

I am positive the future will continue to challenge all of us financially, but thanks to The Mississippi Home Savers Program that I and other families can have peace of mind knowing your organization is there to render assistance. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, there are no words to express how deeply I appreciate all that you have done for me and my family."
"Letter of Appreciation and Gratitude,

I am writing this letter to show my deepest gratitude and appreciation for your assistance in saving my children and I home. Although, a letter would not suffice, yet it is a small gesture to express my sincere thankfulness. You have been a huge blessing within my household. Your staff has been very professional and empathetic towards our situation. Your organization’s commitment to help others has made a big difference many people’s life and I can personally attest to that. I can continue raising my children and making memorable memories in our home. Words cannot express how thankful I am you were there for me when I needed someone most. May God bless each of your staff and the organization for all you do.

Sincerely, MS Homeowner"
"To the Home Saver Plus - HAF Team!

We are so grateful to your team for providing the much-needed assistance we needed during this hectic period of our lives. Without your proper guidance and immediate action, we might have lost our home! We don't even have the words to show our heartfelt appreciation for the work you all have put in over the past few months to get this secured for us. Ms. Tamara and Ms. Tina were informative and very, very, very helpful in assisting us with this process. Our number one goal is to keep our home and you all have given us the opportunity to do that.

To have someone that is there to assist you and help in any way can mean a lot to us. We were treated just and fairly, and we were never made to feel less than others because we were in need of help. It was the willingness to help and assist us that brought so much comfort when it came to this process. We have been through so much over the past few years and the last thing we wanted was to have to tell our five children that we lost our home. But God is faithful to have people and programs like this in place to assist families like ours who due to no fault of our own experienced hardship and setbacks! We're beyond grateful that we can have a different conversation with them about how God blessed us through this program. Our prayer is that this program never stops! There are many families that need this type of help. To those on this team, keep going, keep on blessing, and keep helping families to sustain normalcy in these forever-changing times. Again, thank you all so much!

Moss Family"
"MS HAF Team,

Thank you again for reviewing my file. As per our conversation, I have fasted and prayed that God would show favor on the decision to get assistance with my mortgage. Our business has been crippled due to Covid and the economy. I literally parked across the street from your building every day this week around 11 am and would pray to ask God for HIS favor on your decision. Today as soon as I was done praying, I was not more than 2 minutes down the road when I received a call from you approving my application. This is nothing short of a miracle! All glory now goes to God! He is real!

Chris and Family"
"MS HAF Team,

I am writing to send a sincere thank you for all the assistance you have provided to me and my family. I was dealing with some financial issues and with your services I have been able to make it through some of those hardships. I honestly do not know what we would have done without your organization. Your agency is trustworthy and reliable.

I am positive the future will continue to challenge all of us financially, but thanks to The Mississippi Home Savers Program that I and other families can have peace of mind knowing your organization is there to render assistance. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, there are no words to express how deeply I appreciate all that you have done for me and my family."
"Letter of Appreciation and Gratitude,

I am writing this letter to show my deepest gratitude and appreciation for your assistance in saving my children and I home. Although, a letter would not suffice, yet it is a small gesture to express my sincere thankfulness. You have been a huge blessing within my household. Your staff has been very professional and empathetic towards our situation. Your organization’s commitment to help others has made a big difference many people’s life and I can personally attest to that. I can continue raising my children and making memorable memories in our home. Words cannot express how thankful I am you were there for me when I needed someone most. May God bless each of your staff and the organization for all you do.

Sincerely, MS Homeowner"
"To the Home Saver Plus - HAF Team!

We are so grateful to your team for providing the much-needed assistance we needed during this hectic period of our lives. Without your proper guidance and immediate action, we might have lost our home! We don't even have the words to show our heartfelt appreciation for the work you all have put in over the past few months to get this secured for us. Ms. Tamara and Ms. Tina were informative and very, very, very helpful in assisting us with this process. Our number one goal is to keep our home and you all have given us the opportunity to do that.

To have someone that is there to assist you and help in any way can mean a lot to us. We were treated just and fairly, and we were never made to feel less than others because we were in need of help. It was the willingness to help and assist us that brought so much comfort when it came to this process. We have been through so much over the past few years and the last thing we wanted was to have to tell our five children that we lost our home. But God is faithful to have people and programs like this in place to assist families like ours who due to no fault of our own experienced hardship and setbacks! We're beyond grateful that we can have a different conversation with them about how God blessed us through this program. Our prayer is that this program never stops! There are many families that need this type of help. To those on this team, keep going, keep on blessing, and keep helping families to sustain normalcy in these forever-changing times. Again, thank you all so much!

Moss Family"
"MS HAF Team,

Thank you again for reviewing my file. As per our conversation, I have fasted and prayed that God would show favor on the decision to get assistance with my mortgage. Our business has been crippled due to Covid and the economy. I literally parked across the street from your building every day this week around 11 am and would pray to ask God for HIS favor on your decision. Today as soon as I was done praying, I was not more than 2 minutes down the road when I received a call from you approving my application. This is nothing short of a miracle! All glory now goes to God! He is real!

Chris and Family"
"MS HAF Team,

I am writing to send a sincere thank you for all the assistance you have provided to me and my family. I was dealing with some financial issues and with your services I have been able to make it through some of those hardships. I honestly do not know what we would have done without your organization. Your agency is trustworthy and reliable.

I am positive the future will continue to challenge all of us financially, but thanks to The Mississippi Home Savers Program that I and other families can have peace of mind knowing your organization is there to render assistance. Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, there are no words to express how deeply I appreciate all that you have done for me and my family."

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Sam Vivonia

Sam Vivonia