Modernizing statewide vacancy and waiver management

Overview

We redesigned and rebuilt Massachusetts' vacancy and waiver management process inside CHAMP, replacing a fragmented legacy system with a unified workflow that improves compliance, streamlines administration, and provides statewide visibility into housing operations.

Business impact

A centralized vacancy and waiver platform replaced disconnected processes with transparent workflows, automated fee calculations, and a complete audit trail, reducing administrative overhead while strengthening oversight across Local Housing Authorities.

• Streamlined vacancy and waiver workflows
• Improved compliance tracking and audit visibility
• Consistent statewide housing operations

Problem

Massachusetts housing authorities managed vacancy reporting and waiver requests through an aging system that no longer reflected current policies or operational needs. Vacancy information, fee calculations, and waiver activity were spread across multiple systems and external communication channels, creating manual work, inconsistent reporting, and limited visibility for both local housing authorities and state administrators.

As waiver policies evolved, the existing platform could no longer support increasingly complex compliance requirements, forcing users to rely on workarounds and disconnected processes.

Solution

We designed and delivered an entirely new vacancy and waiver management experience within CHAMP, consolidating reporting, fee management, and waiver workflows into a single platform.

The solution introduced dynamic waiver submission forms that adapt to each request type, centralized review and approval workflows with in-system collaboration, transparent fee calculations, configurable vacancy reporting, and comprehensive vacancy detail pages that bring unit history, waiver activity, leasing information, and audit records together in one place. Throughout discovery, the design also helped shape updated statewide waiver policies and business rules that became the foundation for implementation.

Result

The new workflow dramatically simplified how housing authorities manage vacancies while giving the Commonwealth greater transparency into statewide housing operations.

Context-aware submission flows reduced incorrect waiver requests, while integrated comments, document sharing, and review workflows reduced off-platform communication. Automated fee calculations and centralized reporting accelerated fee reconciliation, replacing manual processes with a consistent, auditable source of truth for vacancy management across Massachusetts.