Making Information Technology Work for Public Housing
By Ronald Roach

PITTSBURGH

Dr. Michael P. Johnson Jr., a professor of management science and urban affairs at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, wants to bring management science tools and the latest information technology applications to public housing programs. Unlike police departments, public transportation agencies, and other service branches of state and local governments, public housing authorities have largely missed the information and management science revolutions that have transformed businesses and the public sector over the past two decades.

"Public housing authorities have not been motivated to apply information technology and decision planning models to improve the quality of their services," Johnson says.

As a U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Urban Scholar in 2001, Johnson got funding to develop a software and Internet-based program called Housing eCounselor for the Pittsburgh housing authority, landlords, and families that participate in HUD's Section 8 program. Under the federally funded Section 8 program, landlords are compensated to provide rental housing for low-income families. Although the low-income families are required to pay a portion of the rent, landlords receive the bulk of the rent, at market competitive rates, through the Section 8 program.

Housing eCounselor is intended to be an Internet resource that public housing officials, Section 8 residents and landlords can use to simplify the search for suitable rental housing, according to Johnson. The system Johnson has developed so far to meet HUD grant requirements does not yet have the full capabilities that he has envisioned for Housing eCounselor.

"It will take another year of development to get the Web site fully operational," he says.

Ideally, in coordination with a fully robust Housing eCounselor Web site, a housing counselor working with a client could find available rental housing that is Section 8 friendly. Neither Internet-based nor software systems currently exist that match Section 8 clients with prospective landlords, Johnson says.