all Chicago accelerates HUD inspection solutions with Property Inspect to combat homelessness

Learn how all Chicago partnered with Property Inspect to streamline property inspections for their rapid rehousing program. By reducing onboarding times by over 50%, they scaled from 500 properties to 2,000+, providing long-term housing for those experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and beyond.

50%

reduced onboarding time

300%

growth in housing

2500+

properties onboarded

Executive summary

all Chicago was launched to help end homelessness in the City of Chicago. all Chicago approached Property Inspect to solve their problem of inspecting properties at scale during the pandemic for their rapid rehousing program, and realized that our software could reduce property onboarding times and streamline the certification process by at least 50%. What started as a goal of on-boarding 500-600 properties is now at 2500+ properties on-boarded since July 2020, helping people experiencing homelessness into long term housing.

Background & introduction

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded millions in Continuum of Care (CoC) grants to more than 1,200 local homeless housing and service programs across the United States and Puerto Rico. CoC grants in its initiative to end homelessness in the United States.

Part of the HUD funding process includes standardized inspections of the property, but even before this is organized; municipalities need the correct documentation in place to be able to allocate funding. Once a property was identified, it had been taking as much as 90 days to move a property through the manual systems. With hand-written notes and individual pictures to take and store; this was a very protracted process.

The challenge

Municipalities face a problem of being able to certify properties at scale for their rapid rehousing program. all Chicago’s processing of homeless applications was labour intensive taking up to 90 days to process a property. Time is precious when people are faced with living on the streets or in Shelters. So re-evaluating the process was critical to rehouse the vulnerable in a faster, more efficient way.

Objectives

Reduce the time it takes to move someone experiencing homelessness into permanent housing.
Enable the landlord to carry out a self inspection via a simple to use template including adding date/time referenced pictures.
Enable the inspector to attend the property and complete the required template fields, add pictorial evidence and action points.
Ability to assign actions for issues to be identified and then assigned for work to be completed on the property prior to the tenant taking up occupation.

Thanks to this streamlined certification process, we’ve reduced property inspection times from 90 days to less than 30, allowing us to rehouse those experiencing homelessness much faster. This has been a game changer in providing timely, safe, and secure housing for our most vulnerable populations.

Megan Lutz

Director Of Technology Operations & Senior Salesforce Administrator

Implementation

Live Inspections allows a unit or property to be inspected remotely and live via our app from any location. By allowing units/housing to be inspected remotely this reduces both the costs and time frame for onboarding properties.

Structured time stamped property reports containing conditions, imagery and video providing accountability that the properties are safe, compliant and fit for habitation. This negates properties that are not fit for purpose and provides actionable information to improve the quality of properties within the process.

The solution

Self Service Assessments by Owners / Landlords
Live Video-based Inspections Certify and document rental properties at scale
Produce ‘fit for human habitation’ reports in a consistent
and compliant way
Reduce administration, property onboarding times and tenant management
Use App-based technology instead of paper checklists
Store full historical logs and timelines for effortless compliance

Outcome

Property Inspect solves many of the current problems facing cities by streamlining the Rapid Re-Housing process at scale. Reducing the time and administration in completing inspections and reports, reporting problems faster, reducing staff training, automating notifications, auditing and compliance. Working with all Chicago improving the documentation of property conditions, has helped us to build templates designed around the HUD process in a compliant and effective way.

By enabling self-inspections for landlords and simplifying the property certification process, we’ve scaled our rehousing operations effectively. This innovation has drastically improved the speed of getting people off the streets and into permanent homes, transforming our rapid rehousing efforts