UMass Donahue Institute

At the request of Representatives Joan Meschino and James Arciero and Senator John Keenan, and in collaboration with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC), the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute (UMDI) has completed a report of the specific applicant and Local Housing Authority challenges of the Common Housing Application for Massachusetts Programs
(CHAMP).

The Donahue Institute’s research develops data assessing how applicants navigate the tenant selection process from CHAMP application to offer acceptance, to determine what elements remain challenging for applicants and Local Housing Authorities (LHA) to enable continuous improvement. Using a mixed methods research approach, which includes focus group interviews with CHAMP applicants and Local Housing Authority staff, and a survey of local housing authorities across the Commonwealth, this report provides information to help improve the CHAMP system to ensure better outcomes for Commonwealth applicants and Local Housing Authorities.

Through its research, the Donahue Institute found:

• Inadequate LHA staffing, communication difficulty between Local Housing Authorities and Archipelago Strategies Group (ASG), and applicant literacy and primary challenges that contribute to longer applicant wait times.
• Improving communication and internal organization between LHA and ASG, making applications extremely clear and transparent for applicants, and training LHA staff to the system are interventions that may help LHA staff avoid longer and costly waiting times to fill vacant units.
• More than half of LHA survey respondents indicated that the number of hours to screen an applicant and the cost to screen an applicant has increased since CHAMP was introduced.
• 67% of survey respondents said that the most beneficial policy of the CHAMP program was the centralization of priority and preference screening (ASG).
• Applicants requested future changes to CHAMP include increased transparency across the entire application process including next steps, follow-up processes with individual LHAs, and being able to look up their spot on a waiting list.
• Applicants found the lack of consistency across LHAs to be particularly challenging, including differences in required documents, the level of customer service available, for English and non-English speakers, and the requirements to meet the burden of proof.
• For applicants who speak little or no English, the availability of support drops off dramatically after the initial application, with applicants finding LHA workers with multilingual abilities to be few and far between, especially for languages other than Spanish.