The Chattanooga Housing Authority has taken a step closer to going paperless.
Executive Director Betsy McCright wrote in a 2015 year-end report to the agency’s board of commissioners the housing authority intends to have public housing applications online this year.
Previously all such applications were submitted on paper.
“It is our goal to have fully computer-based applications in use for LIPH (low-income public housing) by the end of 2016,” according to the report.
The housing authority still will accept paper applications, but housing officials hope their online application will be so easy applicants prefer it.
“Our expectation is that if we have a well-designed computer-based or online system available, by far, most clients will rather use that,” said Mike Sabin, the authority’s director of public housing.
The authority expects online applications will reduce staff time spent on managing applications, waiting lists and reducing errors.
McCright wrote that the agency wanted to start using online applications by the end of the year, but Sabin said it’s still very early in the process and he doesn’t have an exact date when the online applications will start. Nor is he sure how the online applications will be made accessible to residents.
“It will be an exercise of making sure that the customer experience is a good one and a fair one for all of our clients, both computer-using and not, and for individuals with disabilities,” Sabin wrote in an email this week.
In 2015 the agency for the first time required all Housing Choice Voucher Program applicants to apply online. The program accepted more than 6,500 applications in 24 hours in January. And in October 2015 the department accepted more than 3,400 applications in 24 hours.
Having online applications allowed the housing authority to establish a waiting list of 1,000 applicants and work through getting them processed for a voucher in less than a year, officials said. Before 2015, it took five years to work through all the people on the waiting list.
“The elimination of paper applications resulted in a far more efficient process that enabled the CHA to issue vouchers more quickly,” McCright wrote in the report.
But not all public housing residents agreed.
“Applying online is more simple for who?” asked Joe Clark, longtime public housing resident. “Everybody isn’t online. Then you show me the free computer at the library, but what do I punch?”
Clark said the housing authority should talk more to residents before making decisions concerning them and that it should offer computer classes at public housing sites before putting public housing applications online.
Housing authority officials said it will continue accepting paper applications this year to accommodate people who may not have access to computers. But the agency anticipates applicants will prefer online applications, Sabin said.
He expects most clients will access the application with their smartphones, and he wants to make sure that system works well. Officials also expect to provide a computer at every public housing location to make online applications available, according to Sabin.
Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yput man@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.