Management Innovation: Internal Operations

Alaska Housing Finance Corporation:
One Alaska Resource Model

Organism or ecosystem? Over the past year, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation has repositioned its people and platforms to serve our partners as part of a larger ecosystem of housing resources. These efforts have grown into what we affectionately refer to as the One Alaska Resource Model. This initiative has helped deploy over $30M through 3 programs with 16 partners to 50+ zip codes while serving 59 federally recognized tribes. And it's fun.

Colorado Housing and Finance Authority:
CHFA Community Partnerships

In addition to its work in homeownership, rental housing, and business lending, Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) has developed a fourth line of business called Community Partnerships. The Community Partnerships team engages with communities to learn about unique needs, inform investment, and build capacity. Through this framework, CHFA collaborates to create strong partnerships and invest strategically to achieve greater impact and outcomes in targeted communities.

Louisiana Housing Corporation:
LIHEAP Payment Process Improvements

In an effort to expedite and ensure accurate utility payments for clients, the Louisiana Housing Corporation revamped its internal procedures for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. By implementing automated batch processing, facilitated by Louisiana Energy Software (LES) to Excel. LHC simplified and consolidated vendor payments for efficiency, a win-win for vendors and clients.

Michigan State Housing Development Authority:
Preserving Program Integrity: Forging Law Enforcement Partnerships to Ensure Successful Prosecutions of Fraud

Following an unprecedented uptick in reported, attempted, and actual fraud with MSHDA programs during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, MSHDA's Audit, Compliance, and Fraud Investigation (ACFI) Division stood up a new team of investigators to meet this increase with a commensurate response. In addition, ACFI sought out new partners and resources to stay ahead of the fraudsters and bad actors. This submission outlines the innovative activities undertaken toward these goals.

Oregon Housing and Community Services:
Advancing Opportunity for Minority-, Women-owned, and Emerging Small Businesses

Since its launch in 2019, the Minority, Women-owned, and Emerging Small Businesses (MWESB) initiative at Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) has become a critical component of the agency’s objective to further equity and racial justice. Significant improvements to the MWESB initiative have been made in the past year with better data collection, analysis, and transparency, increased sponsor engagement and learning, and improved communication tools for sponsors to better understand MWESB.

Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency:
From HOT MESS to HOTMA

PHFA created the HOTMA Matrix – PHFA Policies to illustrate pertinent HOTMA changes to various funding programs administered and monitored by the Agency. The matrix was born from the need to simplify the HOTMA final rule and highlight specific changes affecting monitoring requirements and tenant eligibility. We dedicated a HOTMA Resources section to our website as a convenient catch-all for HOTMA updates, which provides our housing partners and fellow HFA’s access to the resources we compiled.

Virginia Housing:
ELEVATE – Addressing Economic Equity

As a company, we believe that IDEA is not just a buzzword, but rather a critical component of our mission to provide safe, affordable, and accessible housing to all Virginians. We understand that we have a responsibility to address the systemic barriers that prevent communities of color from accessing the resources they need to thrive. One step toward this is to increase our understanding. Thus, we created our new program in 2023, ELEVATE: Addressing Economic Equity.