Affordable Focus

Walla Walla Housing Authority

By Cutright Elizabeth on Nov 16, 2015 in People

Amy Allred started her career in high-rise property management and commercial real estate development, working on major projects in Seattle. When she decided to relocate and take life at a more moderate pace, a new role as Finance Director for the Walla Walla Washington Housing Authority was the perfect fit.

While working in large-scale housing development and high-rise condos in Seattle, Amy realized she yearned for a career with more meaning. She wanted the chance to make a positive and tangible impact, so she decided to trade her fast-paced urban lifestyle for something a little more rural with a hometown vibe.

“I was working in Seattle and I realized I wanted more of a small-town feel, so I moved to Walla Walla,” says Amy. “The city is located in southeast Washington wine country, and it’s a beautiful place, with a slow-paced lifestyle.”

She was hired as the Walla Walla Housing Authority’s new Finance Director four years ago. The agency is a Yardi client.

“This position is a perfect marriage for me,” Amy said. “It combines my desire to give back to the community with my skills in real estate development.”

The Walla Walla Housing Authority’s property portfolio may only be a fraction of the inventory available in a city like Seattle, but with 84 public housing units, 407 tax credit and market units, and 978 vouchers, there is still lots to do.

“We’re not a huge agency,” admits Amy, “but we’re fairly good sized based on our county population and we are continuing to add inventory to our housing block.”

Expanded Functionality

During her time at Walla Walla, Amy has helped the housing authority expand and evolve. A team of 39 includes clerical staff, accounting, compliance and IT, property managers and inspectors, development, and a maintenance team. In the past, the authority primarily concerned itself with vouchers and public housing, but over time, tax credit properties have claimed more attention.

“When we first implemented Yardi in 2007, we had a couple tax credit properties but we were really more of a public housing authority,” Amy explains. “Now tax credit properties are a much bigger piece of our portfolio, we have staff entirely dedicated to that side of the business, making it a big driver for us.”

As the types of properties overseen by the housing authority changed, Amy felt compelled to explore and better utilize the functionality of her Yardi software products.

“We were really focused on our PHA side when we first implemented our Yardi software,” says Amy. “But I realized when I came on board that our affordable and residential packages were being underutilized.”

Adventures in Software

Amy dedicated herself to maximizing the functionality of the Yardi software (the housing authority uses Yardi’s Voyager Affordable Suite, Voyager PHA, Mobile Maintenance, and Inspector General) as she streamlined operations and enhanced staff efficiency.

“There’s all this functionality in the product that we just haven’t been using,” admits Amy. “I began working on learning what we could do, and how to implement and integrate all the software tools and features into our work processes.”

In order to ascertain the software’s potential, Amy opted to start from scratch, going through all the housing authority’s practices and studying how the Yardi system was being used. She unearthed plenty of unused and underutilized options.

“The challenge was to move past the old way of doing things,” Amy said. “For example, our tax credit compliance has historically been calculated manually. Even though there is actually a ‘Compliance’ button (in Voyager), nobody thought to ask if we should click it or to determine what it does.”

“I took advantage of the adventurous nature of some of our staff,” she continues. “I have a natural curiosity, so my staff and I began to explore the software, clicking buttons and discovering all that we can do with the Yardi software.”

Amy’s software investigations also helped her see a variety of ways to reduce or eliminate some processes.

“The time savings was really felt by our front desk staff,” Amy reveals. “They are our clerical support team, and in the past a lot of their time was spent handling letters and managing schedules, which could take days to complete. Now, they can use one mass schedule that goes out on the tablet to each inspector, with a central schedule available in Yardi.”

Going Mobile

Not only was Amy able to eliminate the chaos and redundancy of old tasks and practices with a little analysis and assessment of current day-to-day actions, but this spring she was also able to initiate a switch to mobile inspections – a key component of the authority’s more streamlined approach to property management.

“Before we implemented mobile work orders three years ago, our maintenance foreman was probably spending two to three days a week reviewing work orders by hand,” details Amy. “He had to print every work order, and then those hard copies had to be categorized, filed and copied.
The mobile work order app allows maintenance workers to open and close work orders in the field. Workers can also order parts, assign tasks, and consolidate information remotely, without ever having to handwrite a note or file a form.

“Now work orders and inspections are being recorded on tablets, and what once took one person two to three days to complete now takes just two to three hours per week. It’s amazing!” declares Amy.

The time savings also allow staff to move on to more important tasks and inspectors can enter an appointment on an online calendar using a double entry option that puts all the information in one centrally located database. Even better, the switch to mobile inspections was easy, even for Amy’s less technical staff.

Nevertheless, the maintenance department has “done really well with the change to mobile inspections. Now they can enter a unit, make a list, do a punch and generate a work order. This simplification has made a huge difference.”

Retrained and Refocused

For Amy, a large part of her workday involves sitting at the computer, accessing data and analyzing information. Now that she’s begun applying new methods and taking full advantage of all the options available with the Yardi software, the next step involves retraining staff and fine-tuning current practices.

“We’ve found that there is a lot of ‘noise’ in our system,” she admits, “and we’re working to smooth out procedures and make sure there’s no incomplete information or records left dangling. We’re currently assessing each step and determining what we can do more efficiently with the Yardi software.”

“Over the last few years, we’ve made a lot of strides in expanding our use of technology,” Amy concludes. “This has been a good transition, our staff is more engaged and these technological additions have saved us tons of time and effort. “