Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 147: Shaina Fite, Public Housing Authority Manager, Yardi

Transcript

Episode 147: Shaina Fite, Public Housing Authority Manager, Yardi · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

0:05
Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore, finding the right
0:09
Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
0:13
Speaker 2: Today's change maker is Shana Fight, the public housing manager
0:17
Speaker 2: with Yardy. Today we're going to look at what happens
0:20
Speaker 2: when housing authorities stop pushing paper and start moving people
0:25
Speaker 2: in homes faster. Shana has spent the last decade helping
0:29
Speaker 2: agencies modernize their systems, including efforts that have delivered over
0:34
Speaker 2: two hundred million dollars in rental assistance. So Shana, welcome
0:39
Speaker 2: so much to the podcast.
0:42
Speaker 3: Thank you, Katie. I'm so happy to be here. I
0:44
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
0:46
Speaker 2: I am thrilled to have you because a lot of
0:48
Speaker 2: times we talk about policy, we talk about people, we
0:51
Speaker 2: talk about subsidy layering, but now we got to talk
0:55
Speaker 2: about the process. So welcome. This is a great inclusion.
1:00
Speaker 2: It's fitting that you're here on the change Makers platform.
1:05
Speaker 2: So let's go back a little bit. Why didn't you
1:08
Speaker 2: tell us how you started working in the performance measuring
1:14
Speaker 2: the performance environment and how you got your first road
1:19
Speaker 2: into complaint. So just give us a little bit about
1:22
Speaker 2: how you came into working for affordable housing.
1:25
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:25
Speaker 4: Absolutely, So I started my professional career selling commodities funny enough,
1:32
Speaker 4: I sold gas and electricity, which led me to Yardy.
1:35
Speaker 4: Some of you may know it's a very reputable software
1:39
Speaker 4: company providing housing software. So I started out in Yardy
1:43
Speaker 4: Energy and then when COVID hit, we developed a project
1:48
Speaker 4: based team to help state and local agencies disperse funding
1:53
Speaker 4: for the American Rescue Plan funds. Right, so you wrap
1:57
Speaker 4: a rental assistance, mortgage assistant, lie Heap, liewop so, utility
2:03
Speaker 4: assistance across the board. And it started out, as you know,
2:08
Speaker 4: we have a couple of clients who need help with this.
2:11
Speaker 4: It could last two three months and then rapidly snowballs
2:15
Speaker 4: because these agencies needed to get this money out very
2:19
Speaker 4: very quickly. So we rapidly developed some workflows. We helped
2:24
Speaker 4: with compliance, helped with HUD reporting, and we actually cut
2:29
Speaker 4: the checks and we got the money out. So four
2:33
Speaker 4: years later, that money has been spent for the most part.
2:38
Speaker 4: So I thought to myself, you know, how can I
2:41
Speaker 4: carry on this good work that we've done here, And
2:45
Speaker 4: obviously Yardpha has been going strong for twenty plus years,
2:50
Speaker 4: So I said, you know what, I think it's that's
2:52
Speaker 4: a good place for me to land.
2:55
Speaker 2: You and I were recently in this same room for
2:58
Speaker 2: the Narrow Washington d C. I think it was the
3:02
Speaker 2: simples legislative form, is what it was. And I was
3:06
Speaker 2: actually sitting in the audience listening to some of your
3:09
Speaker 2: personal connection with public housing and shout out to Narrow
3:15
Speaker 2: for bringing you forward so you could share because I
3:18
Speaker 2: didn't know that about your past. Would you mind sharing
3:22
Speaker 2: that for our listeners though, because for me it was
3:25
Speaker 2: so impactful to hear your personal connection to public housing.
3:31
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I actually wish I'd have gone on a little
3:34
Speaker 4: bit later in that presentation, but that's neither here nor there.
3:37
Speaker 4: So I, you know, as a child's my mother, she
3:43
Speaker 4: was a single mom. We were living in Ohio. She
3:45
Speaker 4: had me and my sister very few options. She essentially
3:49
Speaker 4: staged a sit in at a housing authority and she
3:53
Speaker 4: got lucky. This was before the days of online waitless, right,
3:57
Speaker 4: so I guess she was annoying to where they gave
4:01
Speaker 4: her a unit and so we had somewhere to go.
4:05
Speaker 4: And so that was the first, you know, a few
4:07
Speaker 4: years of my life that I can remember that my
4:11
Speaker 4: first memories were from a public housing complex.
4:15
Speaker 3: And then she married my stepdad. We moved down to.
4:18
Speaker 4: Atlanta and when I turned I was about to graduate
4:22
Speaker 4: high school. I actually had a softball scholarship, and right
4:26
Speaker 4: before my signing date, I found out I was pregnant,
4:29
Speaker 4: and so that of course changed the trajectory of my
4:32
Speaker 4: life pretty significantly. I graduated high school, but I was pregnant.
4:37
Speaker 4: I walked across the graduation stage pregnant, and you know,
4:40
Speaker 4: my parents could not afore we you know, came from
4:44
Speaker 4: minimal means, and I needed to figure it out. So
4:49
Speaker 4: you know, I had my daughter. I applied for all
4:52
Speaker 4: of the assistants I could, and I finally came up
4:56
Speaker 4: on the wait list, and I lived in Marietta public
4:59
Speaker 4: house thing for a few years while I got on
5:02
Speaker 4: my feet, and that allowed me to work, go to school,
5:07
Speaker 4: do the things that I needed to do to really
5:09
Speaker 4: get my footing in life.
5:12
Speaker 2: Your mom was probably with the sit in that that
5:16
Speaker 2: desperation of housing. I mean not to put words into
5:20
Speaker 2: her moment there, but sheer desperation for housing. Probably she'd
5:25
Speaker 2: been waiting for somebody to call her back or process
5:28
Speaker 2: or files, and like most moms, she was using her
5:33
Speaker 2: efficiency chip to push things forward faster, which is actually
5:38
Speaker 2: ironic given what you're doing right now. I mean, like
5:42
Speaker 2: you talk about a destiny thread here, how was some
5:47
Speaker 2: of your experience affected how you approach systems efficiency or
5:54
Speaker 2: how you are approaching reducing workflow logjams.
6:01
Speaker 4: I think it shapes everything, you know, having lived it,
6:06
Speaker 4: I felt it. It creates a different level of respect
6:13
Speaker 4: for the people doing this work. I think that there's
6:17
Speaker 4: like a common misconception of the people who not only
6:20
Speaker 4: live in public housing but dedicate their lives.
6:24
Speaker 3: Around it.
6:26
Speaker 4: So you know, in my instance, my father was my
6:30
Speaker 4: parents met in the military. I was actually born in Belgium.
6:34
Speaker 4: These are not lazy people who are sitting at home
6:37
Speaker 4: and just you know, wanting a handout. You know, I
6:40
Speaker 4: think all of us experience a time where we just
6:44
Speaker 4: need help. And so for me, I think I come
6:49
Speaker 4: with a different level of respect. And I'll tell you,
6:53
Speaker 4: having worked with a market rate properties for five years,
6:58
Speaker 4: the challenges that face public housing authorities are not comparable,
7:04
Speaker 4: not even close the compliance the people sometimes in real
7:08
Speaker 4: life crises. Right, It's just it's next level, and I
7:12
Speaker 4: think that demands a lot of patience and understanding and respect.
7:17
Speaker 2: I appreciate you sharing the authenticity and the vulnerability, if
7:21
Speaker 2: you will, about your own backstory because you know, we're
7:24
Speaker 2: not doing these jobs in a vacuum, because you know,
7:27
Speaker 2: if we were just after a job, there'd be a
7:29
Speaker 2: lot easier jobs that we could find, would there be? Yeah,
7:35
Speaker 2: But I mean there is a connection here. There's a
7:38
Speaker 2: personal drive here in many of our backstories. So you know,
7:43
Speaker 2: you and I I've shared about my own homelessness and
7:47
Speaker 2: some of my housing instability, and you know we're we're
7:50
Speaker 2: sharing those things for several reasons. I mean, it is
7:56
Speaker 2: really what's driving us. But it's also showing some of
8:00
Speaker 2: the concepts that you mentioned that it's it's not a handout,
8:04
Speaker 2: but it truly is a moment to be a hand up.
8:08
Speaker 2: And that's really what's great about this industry. If we
8:12
Speaker 2: can brag on our own industri isn't.
8:14
Speaker 3: It beautifully stated? I could not more.
8:18
Speaker 2: I have a question though, I'm curious, so because I
8:21
Speaker 2: I we're both moms, and how I mean, I know
8:27
Speaker 2: I regularly tell my kids about what I went through,
8:34
Speaker 2: what their grandparents went through, and what they don't have
8:38
Speaker 2: to go through. They get that speech a lot. Do
8:42
Speaker 2: you have a similar speech that you give to your kids?
8:46
Speaker 4: I'll so, my oldest is now twenty two, and then
8:51
Speaker 4: I have a foreign five year old. So the foreign
8:54
Speaker 4: five year old have not been subject to the spiel
8:58
Speaker 4: just yet. But my oldest I can tell you when
9:00
Speaker 4: I stopped giving the speech, she said to me, And
9:04
Speaker 4: this was just after she went to college. She said, Mom,
9:10
Speaker 4: she said, I know you're a hard worker, and I
9:12
Speaker 4: have a lot of respect for you. She said, but
9:16
Speaker 4: I need a soft life. I'm not built like that.
9:19
Speaker 4: And so she dropped out of college and went.
9:22
Speaker 3: To Esthetician school, and that's where we're at.
9:24
Speaker 4: So I said, you know what, I respect the honesty,
9:27
Speaker 4: and that's where I've left it.
9:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
9:31
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I have a coworker of my Tanya Beehler,
9:35
Speaker 2: shout out to her, and she reminds me that our
9:38
Speaker 2: lived experience doesn't have to be their lived experience. And
9:43
Speaker 2: so many times I do try to layer my you know,
9:49
Speaker 2: whatever it was, I don't know, bootstrap survival, whatever you
9:52
Speaker 2: want to call it. I try to layer that to them.
9:55
Speaker 2: But Tanya reminds me that's not always fair to do.
10:00
Speaker 4: Yes, sometimes we trauma dump and we don't need to.
10:04
Speaker 4: We're just trying to better prepare you young children. That's
10:07
Speaker 4: that's all.
10:07
Speaker 3: We're trying to.
10:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, both of us having come from some housing
10:13
Speaker 2: instability and some real, real, substantial life hiccups, I think
10:18
Speaker 2: we now do sit in a chair of influence and
10:22
Speaker 2: decision making and quite honestly change making to where now
10:28
Speaker 2: we can turn around and create platforms and use systems
10:35
Speaker 2: that allow people to get house fell faster. So why
10:38
Speaker 2: don't you speak to that, maybe even just start explaining
10:42
Speaker 2: Yardy from scratch, because not everybody who listens to us
10:46
Speaker 2: is as familiar with the Yardy platform.
10:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would love to. I talk Yardy day in
10:52
Speaker 4: and day out. So shout out to Annit Yardy, the
10:56
Speaker 4: founder of the company. He created this property management software.
11:02
Speaker 4: I believe it was to help him manage some investment
11:05
Speaker 4: properties that he had back in the mid eighties, and
11:09
Speaker 4: it's just grown from there. We're now a global property
11:15
Speaker 4: managed software management company, roughly ten thousand employees. So public
11:22
Speaker 4: housing is just one of the many verticals that you
11:24
Speaker 4: already software supports. We also support market rate housing, commercial,
11:31
Speaker 4: we've gotten into coworking space, and the list goes on
11:34
Speaker 4: and on. We could go on forever talking about all
11:37
Speaker 4: the products and services that he already supports. But me
11:42
Speaker 4: and my colleagues based out of Atlanta, we are all
11:45
Speaker 4: pretty much dedicated to PHA and affordable and yeah, speaking
11:51
Speaker 4: of systems and efficiency, it is just wild to see
11:55
Speaker 4: the transformation. I think that you know, with the coming
12:01
Speaker 4: of AI, you know closed DAI being implemented into our software.
12:07
Speaker 4: I think the technology, even though it's come a long
12:10
Speaker 4: way in the last twenty years, I would say in
12:12
Speaker 4: the next year, is going to look incredibly different and
12:15
Speaker 4: feel incredibly different, and it's going to drive efficiencies that
12:20
Speaker 4: I don't think we thought we would have this quick.
12:24
Speaker 4: So it's going to be very interesting to see the
12:26
Speaker 4: next twelve to twelve to twenty four months.
12:29
Speaker 2: We work with a lot of housing authorities that are
12:33
Speaker 2: stuck in paper land, and they're stuck in the old ways.
12:39
Speaker 2: They don't have an efficiency bind toward them. Where would
12:44
Speaker 2: you tell them to start to try to improve that?
12:48
Speaker 2: Could you give a framework for somebody who's drowning in paper?
12:53
Speaker 3: Oh?
12:54
Speaker 4: Man, paper introduces to major problems, risk and delay.
13:03
Speaker 2: Right.
13:04
Speaker 4: So, I remember when I first started my professional career
13:08
Speaker 4: over twenty years ago, we all worked out of Manila folders.
13:11
Speaker 4: Every contract, everything you were working on had its own
13:13
Speaker 4: little Manila folder. You had a little sticky note, so
13:16
Speaker 4: you wrote notes on where you last left off and
13:19
Speaker 4: what you still needed to do. God forbid that sticky
13:22
Speaker 4: note falls off, and then you have to shuffle through
13:24
Speaker 4: your file again and refigure it all out.
13:28
Speaker 3: You know.
13:28
Speaker 4: Now, imagine a lost file with somebody's personal data, right,
13:33
Speaker 4: sensitive personal data in it. It's it's creates security risks,
13:38
Speaker 4: you know, the workflow bottlenecks and zero audit trail. Nowadays,
13:44
Speaker 4: you know, things are becoming very judicial. I was talking
13:48
Speaker 4: to some agencies where they're saying their residents are using
13:52
Speaker 4: chat GPT to represent themselves. Yes, and so I think
13:59
Speaker 4: now more than you need that audit trail, you need
14:02
Speaker 4: to know who did what in the system and when
14:04
Speaker 4: they did it, et cetera, et cetera. So I think,
14:08
Speaker 4: you know, moving to more digital systems doesn't just make
14:11
Speaker 4: things faster, which faster is great. It makes them you know,
14:16
Speaker 4: safer and holds people more accountable.
14:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, let's talk about that faster component, because
14:22
Speaker 2: that is a common complaint about the industry, is that
14:27
Speaker 2: it takes so long. Whatever it is like, whatever however
14:31
Speaker 2: you define it, is that a unit inspected, is that
14:33
Speaker 2: somebody coming off the waiting list, like whatever the piece
14:36
Speaker 2: in the process. But let's talk about how systems can
14:42
Speaker 2: actually make something faster, Like what does that look like
14:47
Speaker 2: in your world?
14:49
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
14:50
Speaker 4: I always tell people if I never had to run
14:54
Speaker 4: another Excel file, do another pivot table or v look
14:58
Speaker 4: up again in my life, I wouldn't not cry about it.
15:01
Speaker 4: I would say it's you know, it's those monotonous, redundant
15:05
Speaker 4: tasks that bog us down when we don't have automation.
15:10
Speaker 4: And so, you know, having a system in place that
15:14
Speaker 4: understands your compliance needs, where you have canned reporting, where
15:18
Speaker 4: you can just pull a report and you can trust
15:20
Speaker 4: the data is correct because you have that centralized data
15:24
Speaker 4: repository is very important because at the end of the day,
15:30
Speaker 4: paper stacks up. It just equates to delays. When there
15:33
Speaker 4: are delays, that yields frustrated residents. When residents are frustrated,
15:40
Speaker 4: staff is frustrated, and then when staff is frustrated, the
15:43
Speaker 4: agency is overwhelmed. So it's all very interconnected. They say,
15:48
Speaker 4: happy wife, happy life. It's really like happy residents. Healthier
15:52
Speaker 4: agencies is what it is.
15:54
Speaker 3: Right.
15:55
Speaker 2: We mentioned that it reduces risk. We said it evince delay,
16:01
Speaker 2: audit trail safer that automation increased access. There's another thing
16:07
Speaker 2: that I believe is happening too is transparency. You guys,
16:12
Speaker 2: with some of your platforms and some of your dashboards
16:15
Speaker 2: and reports actually improve the transparency aspect of the process
16:22
Speaker 2: where things are. Explain what that looks like for a user,
16:28
Speaker 2: for a housing authority, even for a resident. What is
16:31
Speaker 2: transparency doing when people move through the automation.
16:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll give you two example examples from a resident perspective.
16:40
Speaker 4: And I remember being on a wait list. I cannot
16:43
Speaker 4: tell you how many times I called that agency to
16:47
Speaker 4: see where I was on the waiting list. Right now,
16:51
Speaker 4: through our platform, you know, every resident has a log
16:55
Speaker 4: and they can see exactly where they're at on a waitlist.
16:58
Speaker 4: They can see exactly what documentation they're missing, what they
17:02
Speaker 4: need to research. All of the things are out there
17:05
Speaker 4: and visible to them at any time. Because you know,
17:08
Speaker 4: not only that, you don't always have time in a
17:10
Speaker 4: day to check on things. Sometimes you're in bed at night,
17:13
Speaker 4: you know, doom scrolling, and you're saying, Okay, it's time
17:16
Speaker 4: to check on this thing. The other example that I
17:20
Speaker 4: would give, I'm going to go back to what we
17:24
Speaker 4: called our relief suite during COVID, you know, it was
17:29
Speaker 4: a very sensitive time. We were working primarily with community
17:33
Speaker 4: action agencies. But it was built on the same platform
17:37
Speaker 4: that our newest Voyager version for PHA is on. And
17:43
Speaker 4: that's like the angular layout, where like you said, you
17:47
Speaker 4: have these very easy to read visible dashboards. So if
17:51
Speaker 4: you're an executive director, you're going to log in and
17:55
Speaker 4: your role in permissions is going to allow you to
17:57
Speaker 4: see everything what everybody's working on, where you're at with
18:01
Speaker 4: all of your metrics. And during COVID, the community action
18:05
Speaker 4: agencies were dealing with that and they were under a microscope.
18:09
Speaker 4: There was so much money flowing to states at the time,
18:13
Speaker 4: and people really needed help. I mean, it was it
18:17
Speaker 4: was scary for everyone. And so you know, I was
18:20
Speaker 4: talking to some leaders and they're like, I'm so glad
18:25
Speaker 4: that I can log in and see how many applications
18:28
Speaker 4: we have in the queue, see how many payments we've
18:30
Speaker 4: processed within the month, because I'm getting calls from newspapers
18:35
Speaker 4: and you know, I'm having press calls like just the
18:38
Speaker 4: wildest things. And they were like, you know, I need
18:41
Speaker 4: to have this data at you know, the drop of
18:44
Speaker 4: the hat, and they had it available to them, and
18:46
Speaker 4: I think the same principle can be applied to public housing.
18:51
Speaker 4: You know, you need information the way society is, it
18:55
Speaker 4: just moves so quickly. You need to be able to
18:57
Speaker 4: access high level data that's easily digestible. I don't want
19:01
Speaker 4: to force you to download an Excel file and have
19:04
Speaker 4: you make sense of it. You should just be able
19:07
Speaker 4: to easily review the things that you need to see,
19:11
Speaker 4: right happy end.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, And from the housing authorities perspective, you don't want somebody,
19:17
Speaker 2: the one person to have the spreadsheet that gets updated
19:21
Speaker 2: in a random file that's not with a click, that's
19:24
Speaker 2: in the system too. So you know, like that transparency,
19:27
Speaker 2: that real time awareness of what's happening in the process
19:31
Speaker 2: is so crucial. You know. It makes me think. Jeff
19:35
Speaker 2: Bischoff and I were just on a panel recently and
19:37
Speaker 2: we were talking about actually this twenty four to seven
19:42
Speaker 2: access to information, And I'm curious, from your perspective, what
19:48
Speaker 2: are you guys doing that is the biggest opportunity for
19:51
Speaker 2: innovation right now? What would how would you describe that moment?
19:57
Speaker 4: I hate to sound repetitive, because I feel like these
20:01
Speaker 4: two words are the only two words floating around in
20:03
Speaker 4: society right now. But it's artificial intelligence, you know, the
20:09
Speaker 4: probabilistic decision trees being integrated into every platform that we
20:17
Speaker 4: offer is like I said, it's truly going to be
20:21
Speaker 4: a game changer.
20:23
Speaker 3: Next year.
20:24
Speaker 4: Software with Yardy at least will not look the same,
20:29
Speaker 4: will not operate the same. It's going to free up
20:31
Speaker 4: a lot of time for a lot of people, which
20:34
Speaker 4: I love because I think people can go from using
20:39
Speaker 4: brain power for these very redundant, repetitive tasks and start
20:44
Speaker 4: really thinking critically and creatively about other ways that they
20:48
Speaker 4: can improve their resident experience. I was talking to an
20:51
Speaker 4: executive director last week at the Moving to Work conference
20:57
Speaker 4: and they're light years ahead of everyone and they're already implementing,
21:01
Speaker 4: he said, And I was asking him what his plan
21:04
Speaker 4: was because it was going to free up resources. He said,
21:06
Speaker 4: I'm creating a call center. There are going to be
21:09
Speaker 4: questions that are chatbots unable to answer, and you know,
21:14
Speaker 4: some of the circumstances and situations for our residents are
21:17
Speaker 4: very complex and they need individualized attention and will finally
21:22
Speaker 4: be prepared to have people available to answer phone calls.
21:25
Speaker 4: When's the last time you called somewhere and somebody actually
21:27
Speaker 4: picked up a phone, right, So it's incredible to me.
21:31
Speaker 2: So speak to that because so many people say AI
21:34
Speaker 2: is going to reduce the job count and but yeah,
21:37
Speaker 2: from you know what I'm hearing you say and from
21:40
Speaker 2: this conversation, is you actually can reprioritize resources to other areas.
21:48
Speaker 2: Is that is that which you view as one of
21:51
Speaker 2: the wins as incorporating AI.
21:54
Speaker 3: Oh, one hundred percent.
21:56
Speaker 4: I you know, I've talked to a lot of agencies
21:59
Speaker 4: and a lot of agents and not just eds the staff.
22:03
Speaker 4: They have these incredible ideas on things that they can
22:07
Speaker 4: do in their communities, whether it be to help the
22:10
Speaker 4: elderly population or help the youth you know now, and
22:15
Speaker 4: they're always like crock pot ideas, something that we've thought
22:18
Speaker 4: of now will actually do later and nobody ever gets
22:21
Speaker 4: to doing it because everybody's always so busy. This is
22:24
Speaker 4: going to free up the time to actually do the thing.
22:28
Speaker 4: And so and going back to that critical thinking, like
22:32
Speaker 4: shifting the way people think about their jobs. Jobs when
22:37
Speaker 4: they're redundant can get very boring. But when you allow
22:40
Speaker 4: people to be creative, I think that brings a lot
22:43
Speaker 4: of excitement back into work.
22:46
Speaker 2: Imagine more robust recruitment for landlords coming into the program,
22:50
Speaker 2: or more robust programs for family self sufficiency, which sometimes
22:56
Speaker 2: autopilot right now because people were so worried about compliance
23:00
Speaker 2: moving the process through. But you know, if you free
23:03
Speaker 2: up resources from moving files and paper around and complaints
23:08
Speaker 2: checkboxes and you go over here into more deeper user experiences,
23:14
Speaker 2: you really could change the program, could you.
23:17
Speaker 3: Oh?
23:19
Speaker 4: I you know last week hot topic of conversation shortfall
23:25
Speaker 4: and I'm speaking on these MTW agencies specifically. They have
23:30
Speaker 4: so much freedom and flexibility to get creative and just
23:33
Speaker 4: not enough time to actually put the thought into it
23:37
Speaker 4: and to network with other agencies and to share ideas.
23:42
Speaker 4: And you know, I think that's another another opportunity to
23:46
Speaker 4: resolve some outstanding issues in the industry.
23:50
Speaker 2: And you have a group of leaders and housing authorities
23:54
Speaker 2: who are rushing towards solutions. They have some regulatory flexibility
23:59
Speaker 2: like the MTW. But then you have a few that
24:03
Speaker 2: are not either a size or scope don't have the
24:07
Speaker 2: ability to surge. But then you've got a whole bunch
24:09
Speaker 2: of the middle who have been a little slower to
24:14
Speaker 2: adopt technology. You know, what would you say in your opinion,
24:20
Speaker 2: is why the industry is a little slower to adopt technology.
24:27
Speaker 2: Is there a generalization there or is it just case.
24:30
Speaker 4: It's a great it's a great question. Two things, time
24:36
Speaker 4: and money. Right, an implementation, a software implementation first to
24:42
Speaker 4: purchase software costs money. It's an investment, but it's also
24:44
Speaker 4: an investment in time, which can be six to twelve months,
24:50
Speaker 4: sometimes longer.
24:52
Speaker 3: Shameless plug.
24:53
Speaker 4: We recently rolled out an expedited implementation products, So if
24:58
Speaker 4: you guys are interested.
24:59
Speaker 3: Please come talk to us.
25:01
Speaker 4: But going back to the impact on agencies, the best
25:06
Speaker 4: analogy that I've ever heard shout out to Jonathan Young.
25:12
Speaker 4: It's a military analogy, and it's you know, you have
25:17
Speaker 4: a young man or a young person. A recruiter goes
25:21
Speaker 4: to them and sells them on enjoying the military. Right,
25:24
Speaker 4: everything sounds good. They take the as VAP, they pass
25:27
Speaker 4: the as VAP, and you know, they're really excited. They
25:32
Speaker 4: go to boot camp. Boot camp is the exact opposite
25:36
Speaker 4: of everything that they were sold. And they are in
25:38
Speaker 4: the mud and they're dirty, and they're tired, and they're
25:40
Speaker 4: getting yelled at and it is chaos. But if they
25:44
Speaker 4: persevere and put in the time they graduate from boot camp,
25:49
Speaker 4: they get placed into their permanent role, they get the
25:52
Speaker 4: GI bill, they get.
25:56
Speaker 3: You know, a.
25:56
Speaker 4: Steady paycheck that they don't have to worry about. And
25:59
Speaker 4: that's what I are to quate pretty closely to a
26:02
Speaker 4: software implementation. It's like short term paying, long term gain,
26:07
Speaker 4: but that long term gain can be a huge gain.
26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great analogy actually, where it's like go
26:14
Speaker 2: through it. On the other side, there'll be some wins.
26:17
Speaker 2: Just get through it.
26:20
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
26:21
Speaker 2: So you know that DISLI when we talk about software transitions.
26:26
Speaker 2: I mean usually it is scarier on the front side.
26:29
Speaker 2: It's a little little bit of a horse show in
26:32
Speaker 2: the middle. But maybe horse shows to extreme of a word.
26:37
Speaker 2: But that also is like the human nature piece of it,
26:41
Speaker 2: more than the actual task or the technology. So speaking
26:47
Speaker 2: on that human nature side, like we're afraid of what
26:50
Speaker 2: we don't know, right, how do you speak to teams
26:56
Speaker 2: to get them through a transition? How do you speak
27:01
Speaker 2: to teams when they are used to doing something a
27:06
Speaker 2: very certain way?
27:09
Speaker 3: That is a great question.
27:12
Speaker 4: Everybody has something in their daily work that they just
27:16
Speaker 4: cannot stand doing, right. It's you know, there's the one
27:20
Speaker 4: thing that takes hours and hours every month, and usually
27:24
Speaker 4: that thing is something that software can solve for.
27:29
Speaker 3: So, you know, I go in and.
27:34
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's difficult to pull that out right because, like
27:37
Speaker 4: you said, people don't know what they don't know. So
27:40
Speaker 4: it's asking questions like, well, what are you tell me
27:43
Speaker 4: how you're using spreadsheets? You know, tell me what you're
27:46
Speaker 4: doing me to try to sift out the manual processes
27:49
Speaker 4: and eventually it comes out and when you can tell them,
27:52
Speaker 4: if you say, well, if you can stick with me
27:55
Speaker 4: over the next few months and we can get your
27:56
Speaker 4: trained on this system, and I can promise that this
27:58
Speaker 4: thing that took you ten out hours a week is
28:02
Speaker 4: going to be automated, like can we do this thing?
28:05
Speaker 4: And most of the time you'll get there buy in.
28:08
Speaker 4: The hard part is, you know, trying to figure out
28:14
Speaker 4: what that thing is for each department within an agency,
28:17
Speaker 4: because even you know, agencies are so unique in that
28:22
Speaker 4: you can have two agencies and a close geographic proximity,
28:26
Speaker 4: but they're serving two completely different populations with very different programs.
28:31
Speaker 4: And then within those agencies you have your you know, operations, maintenance, finance,
28:38
Speaker 4: and you could have two of those departments doing just fine,
28:41
Speaker 4: and one of them really struggling.
28:43
Speaker 3: And so you're.
28:43
Speaker 4: Adopting this platform to solve for one thing, So how
28:47
Speaker 4: do you sell the other two that say, you know what,
28:49
Speaker 4: I've been doing the same thing for twenty thirty years,
28:53
Speaker 4: why should I change now? So it is, you know,
28:57
Speaker 4: getting to the bottom of the things they're spending time
29:00
Speaker 4: on that they they may not love to do, and
29:03
Speaker 4: just solving for it.
29:04
Speaker 2: M h. And you know it's weird because we're talking
29:07
Speaker 2: about human nature. You know, if you've you've already you've
29:10
Speaker 2: always known that you click screen three two one one,
29:14
Speaker 2: and you go through it, you know what report is
29:18
Speaker 2: going to work, what isn't And then you're taking all
29:21
Speaker 2: of that away and replacing it with I don't even
29:25
Speaker 2: you know.
29:25
Speaker 3: Where do I start? Like where do I click? What
29:27
Speaker 3: do I know? You know?
29:28
Speaker 2: Like there is this human component of it, but we
29:32
Speaker 2: are not normally trained to look for the winds, like
29:36
Speaker 2: we're not normally trained to look for the hero moment.
29:38
Speaker 2: We're not normally trained to say, what is going to
29:42
Speaker 2: be so much better? That I didn't even realize I
29:46
Speaker 2: was overcompensating by making my own homemade spreadsheet or whatever
29:50
Speaker 2: it is, and I think that that is the interesting
29:53
Speaker 2: thing about technology is that you know, we didn't even
29:57
Speaker 2: know we wanted to book an airline tech on our phone.
30:01
Speaker 2: You know, we thought going into the travel agent's office
30:05
Speaker 2: and waiting in mine and you know, going through we
30:08
Speaker 2: thought that was how we were supposed to do it.
30:10
Speaker 2: We didn't even know we wanted to book our own tickets.
30:12
Speaker 2: So I think that is sort of that look for
30:16
Speaker 2: the win moment we didn't know we needed when it
30:19
Speaker 2: comes to technology.
30:21
Speaker 3: I could not agree more.
30:23
Speaker 4: And you know, going back to those hero moments, you know,
30:27
Speaker 4: they happened, they were there, but it was like, like
30:31
Speaker 4: you said, identifying them was difficult because the data wasn't there.
30:36
Speaker 2: Right.
30:37
Speaker 4: It's like, the thing happened and you're going on people's words.
30:40
Speaker 2: But.
30:42
Speaker 3: Where's the data to prove it?
30:43
Speaker 4: Right? And so now, you know, digitizing everything and having
30:49
Speaker 4: data sort of tell the story is very powerful, very powerful.
30:54
Speaker 4: You know.
30:54
Speaker 2: I just made a couple of posts on LinkedIn and
30:58
Speaker 2: I had really a lot of fun with it. But
31:01
Speaker 2: I was saying that one of the most dangerous things
31:04
Speaker 2: in housing is hearing We've always done it this way.
31:11
Speaker 2: I actually had fun because everybody hears we've always done
31:15
Speaker 2: it this way or the inverse, We've never done it
31:18
Speaker 2: like that, and those are those can be really operationally
31:23
Speaker 2: dangerous when you think about it. Do you have a
31:25
Speaker 2: favorite story of where you've combatd some of that.
31:30
Speaker 4: I will say I've been at the receiving end of
31:32
Speaker 4: that thought process of.
31:33
Speaker 3: The way we've always done things.
31:36
Speaker 4: And it was not fun for me.
31:38
Speaker 3: It was not pleasant.
31:39
Speaker 4: I you know, the people at the housing authority, I
31:43
Speaker 4: remember them being great, but I remember, you know, having
31:50
Speaker 4: to choose. I was applying not only for housing, I
31:53
Speaker 4: was applying for SNAP, I was applying for tanif. Each
31:57
Speaker 4: one of those things was a different state agency, a
32:01
Speaker 4: different place I had to physically go to to submit
32:04
Speaker 4: an application. So it was, you know, do I call
32:08
Speaker 4: off work again? Do I really need Yes? I do
32:11
Speaker 4: really need this thing. I got to figure it out.
32:13
Speaker 4: You get there, you're missing documentation, got to reschedule, right.
32:19
Speaker 4: So the way that we've always done things is not
32:22
Speaker 4: necessarily the best way to do things.
32:25
Speaker 3: And I bring up that example every single time.
32:29
Speaker 2: And you know, when you think about working families, there's
32:32
Speaker 2: you know, you don't want to have to create that
32:36
Speaker 2: friction moment related to housing stability, like when you are
32:42
Speaker 2: concerned if your paperwork got submitted and you may lose
32:46
Speaker 2: your housing. Immediate tension in friction, it hits at a
32:52
Speaker 2: core of a person's whole being. If you're like, oh
32:55
Speaker 2: my gosh, I just got a non compliance notice, this
32:57
Speaker 2: is my first notice, or you know all of those scenarios.
33:03
Speaker 2: But when you're working with technology and you're working in
33:06
Speaker 2: a portal that you guys have that you can actually
33:09
Speaker 2: pull it up, you can see where it is, what's submitted,
33:11
Speaker 2: what's not, and it reduces some of that friction there
33:18
Speaker 2: just by having access to information. And then you know
33:21
Speaker 2: this not just for the participant, it's for the landlord.
33:23
Speaker 2: And you know some examples that you mentioned as far
33:25
Speaker 2: as executive leadership and community and and so forth. So
33:31
Speaker 2: you know there's there's a lot more work to be
33:33
Speaker 2: done though, because there's this isn't the standard in the
33:38
Speaker 2: norm for everybody?
33:39
Speaker 1: Is it? Oh?
33:42
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
33:44
Speaker 2: What is it that you guys are doing that's so
33:48
Speaker 2: much better than anything else? Like what can you give
33:53
Speaker 2: secret sauce? We're not asking code?
33:57
Speaker 5: Yeah?
33:57
Speaker 2: So did you guys do that so much better?
34:00
Speaker 4: And I well, the software like you can put our
34:05
Speaker 4: gel accounting software up against any competitor. And our founder
34:11
Speaker 4: is the most humble, wonderful human being on the planet,
34:14
Speaker 4: so he does not like when we boast about But
34:20
Speaker 4: I'm going to boast for a second because you know,
34:25
Speaker 4: the accounting capabilities are just are unmatched, and the way
34:30
Speaker 4: that we prioritize our clients and our communities I think
34:37
Speaker 4: is unmatched as well. You know, a lot of our
34:41
Speaker 4: development is driven off of client need and client suggestions.
34:45
Speaker 4: We don't just take stabs in the dark at what
34:48
Speaker 4: we think clients might want. We listen to their needs
34:52
Speaker 4: and we develop from there. So that's one thing. But
34:56
Speaker 4: two and I hate to keep going back to this
34:58
Speaker 4: AI thing, but it's a thing kind of going back
35:01
Speaker 4: to your last statement. The real impact to human beings
35:06
Speaker 4: is you know that an agency will be able to
35:12
Speaker 4: upload into their you know, closed environment, all of their
35:17
Speaker 4: processes and procedures and requirements. Everything will be though it's
35:21
Speaker 4: going to be reading everything. So you know, in that
35:24
Speaker 4: instance where a resident gets a notification and is startled
35:29
Speaker 4: by it, they'll be able to go in and ask
35:31
Speaker 4: the agent and just say, I got this, what do
35:35
Speaker 4: I do? And it's going to give them step by
35:37
Speaker 4: step instructions it could be in the middle of the night,
35:39
Speaker 4: but they're going to be getting guidance so that they
35:41
Speaker 4: can sleep a little bit better. Right, that's the that's
35:45
Speaker 4: the real human impact. And what does that also do?
35:50
Speaker 4: It relieves some of the pressure from the agency as well. Right,
35:54
Speaker 4: So I'm very excited to see how we evolve integrating AI.
36:02
Speaker 4: I think we're at the frontier, especially in public housing,
36:07
Speaker 4: and I'm just very excited everybody. I'll have to join
36:11
Speaker 4: us this fall or next spring at a conference and
36:15
Speaker 4: we'll be ready to show everyone.
36:18
Speaker 2: You guys have been giving sneak peak previews of what
36:21
Speaker 2: you're doing in the AI space, and a lot of
36:25
Speaker 2: people are watching from the sidelines, and a lot of
36:29
Speaker 2: people are tapping on their watch and ready to ready
36:32
Speaker 2: to launch with you. What what do you you know?
36:37
Speaker 3: Is this?
36:37
Speaker 2: Is this the initiative that's giving you the most hope
36:40
Speaker 2: as far as technology advancements or do you have others?
36:45
Speaker 4: It's definitely what's giving me the most hope. And I
36:48
Speaker 4: you know, it's one of those things. It's I'm conflicted
36:52
Speaker 4: personally about AI. I will tell you I'm a bit
36:56
Speaker 4: of an environmentalist. You know, there's strain environmentally there's now
37:03
Speaker 4: you know, some of the LM leaders are sort of
37:06
Speaker 4: combating each other.
37:08
Speaker 3: It's kind of become a weird political thing.
37:11
Speaker 4: But and Sam Altman is sort of a figure that
37:16
Speaker 4: you know, you hate him or love him. But he
37:17
Speaker 4: said something that really stuck with me, and I actually
37:22
Speaker 4: agree with He said, you know, AI will not replace humans,
37:27
Speaker 4: but humans who don't use AI will be replaced by
37:31
Speaker 4: those who do. And I feel that in my core
37:35
Speaker 4: I follow technology, I see that, and I think that's
37:39
Speaker 4: a very real statement.
37:41
Speaker 2: You know, well, pioneers and innovators sometimes they get the
37:47
Speaker 2: villain chair until all of a sudden the waves come
37:51
Speaker 2: through and everybody goes, oh, okay, well it did work
37:56
Speaker 2: and it was beneficial, and they'd also the other industries
38:00
Speaker 2: a chance to speed up, like the infrastructure and some
38:04
Speaker 2: of those other utility conversations that are happening. You know,
38:09
Speaker 2: the tech is running faster than some of those other
38:12
Speaker 2: industries can catch up right now. So you know, when
38:15
Speaker 2: you think of even bearing fiber lines, you know that
38:19
Speaker 2: used to not ever happen anywhere, and now neighborhoods are like, absolutely,
38:24
Speaker 2: we're not turning dirt and tell there's lines buried and
38:26
Speaker 2: so you know, utility infrastructure takes a few minutes to
38:29
Speaker 2: catch up with the technology in some cases. So you know,
38:33
Speaker 2: this is a this is a good conversation. I'm I mean,
38:37
Speaker 2: just when I was in college, I don't even think
38:40
Speaker 2: there was anything to Google. There wasn't I don't think
38:42
Speaker 2: there was Google, you know, and I think there were
38:46
Speaker 2: like certain things that you know I had to like flip.
38:48
Speaker 5: Through, you know, the Dixonary, right, yeah, the encyclopedias, the
38:53
Speaker 5: Encyclopedia Britannica, Right. I mean, like, so this is a
38:57
Speaker 5: whole nother world that we've just moved through, and you know,
39:01
Speaker 5: and it is kind of funny because I talked to
39:03
Speaker 5: my kids and I'm like, there wasn't even Google around.
39:06
Speaker 2: Like, you know, back in my day. And so you know,
39:08
Speaker 2: here we're talking about all of these other platforms that
39:12
Speaker 2: we can access information, the power of it, the convenience
39:18
Speaker 2: of it, and then you know, we do want to
39:19
Speaker 2: consider the cost and the risk as well. So we've
39:23
Speaker 2: covered a lot here. Is there something else that maybe
39:27
Speaker 2: we've missed that you would want to add on?
39:31
Speaker 4: You know, the last thing I think I'll mention that
39:34
Speaker 4: we haven't talked about is the increasing need of affordable housing.
39:40
Speaker 4: I live in Atlanta, and you know, I've seen the growth.
39:46
Speaker 4: I've also seen a lot of displaced people. And I
39:50
Speaker 4: don't have the data. I don't have the metrics, but
39:52
Speaker 4: I can tell you what I see and what I feel.
39:55
Speaker 4: I've grown up and lived in the same area pretty
39:57
Speaker 4: much my whole life, and when I go to these
39:59
Speaker 4: same grocery stores, I'm starting to see people who are
40:03
Speaker 4: clearly living in their cars right They're parked in the
40:06
Speaker 4: back and they have all their stuff, and you know.
40:09
Speaker 3: It just feels to me that the need is growing.
40:12
Speaker 4: So I'm just so grateful that there are people like
40:17
Speaker 4: you in this industry, so many thought leaders, you know.
40:21
Speaker 4: Seeing you speak on panels at conferences is like it
40:24
Speaker 4: is just one of my highlights. And there are so
40:27
Speaker 4: many others who have just dedicated their lives to this mission.
40:31
Speaker 3: And that's what we need. We need more of this,
40:35
Speaker 3: not less, and just all the more reason.
40:40
Speaker 4: To take in and adopt those efficiencies when and where
40:43
Speaker 4: you can, because the need is not going away, it's
40:46
Speaker 4: just increasing.
40:48
Speaker 2: I appreciate that because you're right, anytime we can grab
40:52
Speaker 2: the microphone to continue to advocate for the need and
40:56
Speaker 2: to continue to advocate how many different to loutions there are.
41:01
Speaker 2: As fragmented as they are, there are still solutions. So
41:06
Speaker 2: we owe it to so many people to not just
41:09
Speaker 2: kind of shrug our shoulders and hope it gets better.
41:12
Speaker 2: But we we do need to roll up our sleeves.
41:14
Speaker 2: We need to grab the microphones. We need to keep
41:16
Speaker 2: being champions of affordable housing. And you know, I'll i'll,
41:20
Speaker 2: you know, I'll just be real honest with you here.
41:23
Speaker 2: It is not easy grabbing the microphone. It is not
41:27
Speaker 2: easy continuing to stay in this moment of champiing you know,
41:35
Speaker 2: a cause that you know is difficult, and you know,
41:40
Speaker 2: the regulations are complex, the funding every year you have
41:43
Speaker 2: to justify. Sometimes the buildings aren't great, right, Sometimes they
41:50
Speaker 2: need more work than they have money for. And you know,
41:55
Speaker 2: to work in that kind of an ecosystem, it's hard.
41:59
Speaker 2: And but there are ways for improvement. There are ways
42:05
Speaker 2: to do this better. There are ways to be good
42:09
Speaker 2: stewards of the money. And you know, we can keep
42:13
Speaker 2: listen as many vouchers as we can get can't wait
42:15
Speaker 2: because the need, the need.
42:17
Speaker 4: Is there, it is and I'm just cheers to grabbing microphones.
42:22
Speaker 2: Friend, let's do that, like, you know, like, let's cheers
42:26
Speaker 2: to grabbing our microphones right here, right.
42:28
Speaker 3: Won't we I don't have a microphone, but.
42:32
Speaker 2: We'll keep fucking along and grabbing the microphone though, won't.
42:35
Speaker 3: Wait.
42:36
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, that's amazing. Well, I appreciate you again.
42:41
Speaker 2: I've been talking with shanea Fight, the public housing authority
42:46
Speaker 2: manager with Yordy. Appreciate your time, Appreciate what you guys
42:50
Speaker 2: are doing and keep us moving forward with technology options.
42:55
Speaker 3: Thank you, absolutely, thank you, Katie.
42:59
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Change Makers with Katie Gore. To
43:02
Speaker 1: find out more about Katie, go to quadel dot com.
43:06
Speaker 1: That's qu A d e l dot com. This has
43:10
Speaker 1: been a production of Forbes Books Radio