Lease2Home: Matching Customers with Affordable Housing Opportunities

About the Program

Category: Community and Economic Development (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

The Landlord Engagement Unit (LEU) connects individuals/families exiting homelessness and seeking affordable housing units with landlords seeking tenants. Our mission is: • Increase affordable housing accessibility through relationships with housing/homeless service providers • Create/manage a comprehensive database of affordable, available homes • Coordinate tenant relocation efforts when properties displace low-income residents through community partnerships • Generate program/system-level performance insights through data analysis and best practice research. The LEU’s team of eight staff with 80+ years of combined property and case management expertise partnered with Wake County’s Information Services department to develop the Lease2Home app. This custom-built app was developed in-house using Microsoft’s low-code Power Platform for rapid application development. Lease2Home enables real-time client-to-unit matching based on client housing needs, wants, barriers, unit features, and landlord requirements. Lease2Home is reinforced with robust, analytical Power BI reporting and has saved upwards of $200,000 since we did not have to purchase an outside solution. Lease2Home generates critical insights into program performance and areas for improvement. The following are targets for its first three years of operation: • Add 300 affordable units to the database • Add 50 new landlords to the program • Generate 50 signed leases from Housing leads