Applications and waitlists
One application, hundreds of waitlists, and a pull you can defend on appeal.
The waitlist is where your agency is most exposed: to appeals, to audits, and to applicants who have waited years. This module is why the platform exists.
The workflow
Every stage of this workflow is flexible: expandable to your agency’s rules and processes, with no limit on how far that goes.
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ApplyOnline, on a phone, or on paper you scan in
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Waitlist placementOne application feeds every list the household qualifies for
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List pull previewSee exactly who a pull would select before committing
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List pull and lettersSnapshot at pull; mandated mailing-wait periods enforced
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Determination and offerSnapshot at offer and archive; Excel audit exports throughout
State-aided public housing · MRVP mobile and project-based vouchers · AHVP alternative housing vouchers · Federal Housing Choice Vouchers
What’s in the module
The application applicants can actually finish
A guided 14-screen application in plain language, with save-and-resume, a live progress meter, and a review page with jump-to-edit before certifying. Mobile-first throughout, in seven languages.
- A Housing Finder map and list for shopping waitlists by town, program, bedrooms, and distance from home, work, or school, with regulatory application caps enforced automatically
- A six-stage status journey, ranked action-required alerts, and honest wait estimates per waitlist, including “this could take over ten years”
- Applicants already on a paper waitlist can find and claim their existing record online, with identity checks and rate limiting
- E-signatures throughout, and an applicant-visible audit log of every change in one printable history
Paper and digital, one system
Printable applications are generated from the same templates as the digital forms in seven languages, so the two remain in parity.
- A scan intake pipeline: upload, link, track, and resolve paper scans through managed queues with data-entry status
- Guided data-entry sessions that preserve the paper form’s original date and produce a receipt
- AI transcription pre-filling about 90 structured fields from a scan, for staff to confirm
- Document upload accepts phone photos including HEIC, converted automatically
A ranking engine that explains every position
Priorities 1–7, veteran preference with sub-preferences, local residence, employment and school preference, minority super-priority, and deterministic tie-breaking, all in code, all explainable. This is the answer to “what happens when an applicant appeals.”
- Filtered list pulls with dry-run preview before anything commits
- A six-step guided workflow from pull through letters, determinations, and offers, with mandated mailing-wait periods enforced
- Letters generated with conditional logic, non-responsive applicants handled automatically, and rejection letters generated for applicants who don’t qualify
- Offer rules baked into the workflow: who gets the next offer and when, multiple vacancies filled from one pull, built-in offer sequencing
- Immutable snapshots and Excel audit exports at pull, offer, and archive
Lotteries, purges, and duplicate control
The unglamorous operations that keep a list defensible over years, each with its own audit trail. In Massachusetts the lottery feature replaced physical bingo wheels.
- Lotteries: randomized ordering over configurable windows, with per-applicant history and summary reports
- Auditable multi-stage inactive-applicant purges with email and postal outreach, reversible provisional status, and a snapshot at every step
- Nightly duplicate detection plus reviewed merge queues
Platform modules overview
Applications and waitlists
- A guided 14-screen application in plain language, with save-and-resume and a review page with jump-to-edit before certifying.
- A Housing Finder map and list for shopping waitlists by town, program, bedrooms, and distance, with regulatory application caps enforced automatically.
- A six-stage status journey with honest plain-language wait estimates per waitlist, including “this could take over ten years.”
- Dry-run list pulls, an explainable ranking engine, and immutable snapshots at pull, offer, and archive.
- Letters with conditional logic, automated handling of non-responsive applicants, and offer sequencing with compliance rules baked in so no applicant is skipped by accident.
Screening, income, and rent
- A line-item income calculator: 8 income categories, ~28 named exclusions, 7 deductions, every item tagged against 24 CFR 5.609.
- A determination-letter builder with structured denial reasons, regulation citations, and links to the exact documents each decision relied on.
- Centralized screening across many agencies, with field-level control over who may review what.
Voucher administration
- The full lifecycle from unit search to leased, plus suspensions, extensions, reissues, and terminations, each with structured reasons.
- Expiration dates that recalculate from every extension, suspension, and unit-review period, and show the arithmetic.
- Online RFTA submission by voucher holders, reviewed by staff with rent-reasonableness determinations.
Tenant and property operations
- Work orders drafted by AI from an inspection checklist and deficiency photos, source photos attached, created by staff with one click.
- Inspections and the tenant operations workflows around them.
- A general ledger with live AR/AP aging behind the operations.
Language access and accessibility
- Seven languages end to end: site, emails, letters, and printed forms, generated from the same templates.
- Website language and letter language set independently, so a household can browse in one language and receive mail in another.
- Reasonable accommodation as a first-class flow, from the application through screening.
Trusted helpers
- Applicant-granted delegation: scoped, time-boxed, revocable, with a hard gate on financial fields.
- Helper dashboards with caseloads and organization-level accounts.
- A multilingual applicant help assistant grounded only in guidance you approved.
Oversight, reporting, and audit
- A real-time statewide dashboard over intake, submissions, and priority claims.
- About 70 scheduled reports, generated on schedule instead of assembled by hand.
- About 112 application event types logged, with versioned records of every application and worksheet.
Integrations
- Versioned, schema-governed, checksummed exports to your own warehouse, with full access for reporting and analytics.
- A scoped read API for partner agencies and vendors, and server-to-server Salesforce integration.
- Nightly reconciliation with state systems, and validated legacy migration with preserved submission dates.
Letters and communications
- Determination letters with structured denial reasons, regulation citations, and links to the exact documents each decision relied on.
- Letters, notices, and printed forms generated from the same templates as the online forms, in seven languages.
- Website language and letter language set independently, so a household can browse in one language and receive mail in another.
Security, identity, and permissions
- Single sign-on against your identity provider, and multi-factor authentication on every staff login.
- 13 roles composed from about 95 discrete permissions, with delegated administration.
- Annual user-access reviews with automatic lockout on lapse, and privacy-preserving staff search with every result view logged.
What we can build on top
Three examples of the kind of work our engineers build into an installation on a normal delivery schedule.
- A preference rule that applies to only one chapter of your program, with its own tie-break
- A letter set in your agency’s language and layout, generated from the same templates as the printed forms so the two remain in parity
- A residency or employment preference verified against a data source you already trust, with the verification logged on the applicant’s record
Let’s talk about what your agency needs.
An intro conversation, a demo of Housing Forge, a conversation about your specific needs.
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