During our research, we spoke with staff from seven Public Housing Agencies (PHA) across the country to better understand what it takes to create and maintain their public-facing applications and forms.

We learned that there is no uniform way in which PHAs design and amend their forms, even though the regulatory requirements that govern these forms are similar. Additionally, PHAs face several challenges in complying with the new HOTMA regulations. Interpreting the rules and developing staff training is time-consuming and requires updating materials across formats and for different audiences. When creating or revising public-facing forms, PHAs reported difficulties using plain language, ensuring consistency, and translating content into other languages. Due to limited translation capacity, many rely on bilingual staff to bridge the gap.

PHA staff members we spoke with were eager to receive templates for these forms. PHA staff expressed a desire for example model forms that are already in plain language and are user-friendly, as this would help ease their workload and improve the experience of people applying for housing assistance.

After speaking with PHA leadership and staff, we gathered forms and application materials from each public housing agency to determine information overlap and divergence. Our goal was to create a unified set of template forms that could combine disparate elements of existing forms while also meeting HOTMA regulations. During our research phase, we assessed over 715 pages of public housing forms.