How 8 Ontario cities have little to show for $2.6M social housing software | 24CA News
A customized housing software program in improvement for greater than a decade and costing greater than $2.6 million has solely been partially rolled out in two of the eight Ontario municipalities that pushed for it, whereas one municipality has fully dropped out of the undertaking.
Following an inquiry by native media, metropolis workers in London, Ont., are offering extra particulars concerning the fledgling undertaking and planning to supply common updates going ahead — London metropolis council final acquired a undertaking replace in February 2015.
The province downloaded accountability for administering and funding most social housing, or neighborhood housing, in 2000 and in 2011, expanded the tasks and powers of municipal service managers below the Housing Services Act.
The thought for the customized software program undertaking started in December 2011 with London taking the result in kind a consortium of service managers with Windsor, Hamilton, Waterloo, Chatham-Kent, York, Halton and Ottawa, dubbed the Housing Collaborative Initiative (HCI).
The undertaking was confirmed in 2014 when the areas’ service managers “signed an agreement to design, procure, develop and implement housing software to move from local Excel-based and paper-based tracking systems to one that consolidates the business information related to waitlists, rent supplement and housing providers in a consistent format,” London’s new director of municipal housing improvement Matt Feldberg defined.
In the following decade, Hamilton and Waterloo have partially rolled out the software program whereas York has exited the consortium totally.
London at the moment has “a version” of the software program and is “undertaking preliminary assessment prior to embarking on a full testing plan,” metropolis workers mentioned.
“(Hamilton and Waterloo) have actually offered to help us with some of the findings they’ve had, lessons learned, and what they’ve implemented,” Feldberg mentioned Tuesday.
“If we’re able to implement faster, that would absolutely be an intention.”
The undertaking has value $2,605,224 thus far, with London contributing $361,750 of that complete.
The City of Hamilton’s Housing Services Division instructed Global News it’s accountable for 18.8 per cent of the entire value, which works out to simply below $500,000. The cost-sharing method relies “on its proportionate amount of social housing units to those of the other municipalities.”
The undertaking has value over $2.6 million {dollars} as of May 2, 2023.
through Community and Protective Services Committee/City of London
The undertaking appeared to have been all however forgotten within the public eye till April 2023 when CBC London “contacted the Municipal Housing Development team inquiring about the project and the overall status,” workers mentioned.
“This prompted the new leaders in the housing area to undertake a review on the status of the project.”
Among these new leaders is Feldberg.
“I started this this job in November of last year,” he instructed Global News on Wednesday.
“I can’t really speak to what happened before but, at this point, the intention is to tell council exactly what’s going on, let the public know and make sure that we have a path towards implementation.”
In the primary replace offered to London councillors since 2015, Feldberg prompt to the Community and Protectives Services Committee on Tuesday that decision-making was largely left to the governance group, of which London and Halton act as co-chairs.
“All of the procurement was undertaken with the guidance and oversight of the HCI governance group, including the selection of software vendor and project coordinator.”
He additionally described the undertaking as having “a long history in a changing regulatory environment.”
Feldberg later defined to Global News that there have been various modifications to the Housing Services Act because the undertaking started in earnest in 2014, along with intensive organizational modifications on the City of London and London and Middlesex Community Housing, an organization that at the moment manages roughly 3,000 items on behalf of town.
In 2019, town council on the time authorized a governance overhaul of LMCH and the Housing Development Corporation after an impartial evaluation highlighted a number of points together with an absence of governance oversight and communication points between the businesses and town.
“That’s the local context. If you layer that on to the seven other municipalities that are part of of that, yes, they’re all subject to the same Housing Services Act, but they (also) have their own organizational changes and their own local councils that are changing.”
According to the report from London metropolis workers, Ottawa took the lead on a procurement course of and BSA Consulting was employed in February 2015. A month later, Arcori was employed because the software program developer.
Ottawa, Halton and Windsor all employed full-time positions “to support the development of the new software,” in 2017, London metropolis workers mentioned. At that point, LMCH was dealing with communications with the guide for town.
From 2017 to 2019, the governance group met month-to-month and “a series of working groups were established” to supply particular steering on the software program’s hire complement, waitlist, finance and danger administration modules.
In January 2021, Waterloo was the primary to start rolling out the software program, dubbed the Integrated Housing System (IHS), starting with the ready listing module, director of housing Ryan Pettipiere instructed Global News.
“The system allows us to manage waiting lists for the various housing sites or programs and offer units or program funding to prioritized applicants when units or funding is available. It also generates reports that allow us to track waiting list-related data, trends and outcomes.”
Two different modules are at the moment in testing in Region of Waterloo.
The City of Hamilton’s housing providers division instructed Global News that it started utilizing the software program in July 2021, additionally beginning with the waitlist module.
“It replaced the antiquated legacy system and end-of-life server that were used to administer the social housing waitlist,” housing providers defined over e mail, including that the hire complement and housing allowance modules are anticipated to be applied by the tip of the yr.
Because of the phased-in strategy, which permits for “system development, testing and training at each stage,” Hamilton’s housing division was unable to say when it expects IHS to be absolutely operational.
While Waterloo and Hamilton seem to have discovered some success with IHS, York left the consortium totally in May 2022. London metropolis workers reported it’s “unclear at this time” why they left however a “further review will be undertaken and reported to committee.” Global News has reached out to York Region and is awaiting a response.
City workers are actually recommending the governance group present extra transparency on the standing of the undertaking and that native implementation aligns with London’s “technology and project management best practices.”
Feldberg instructed the committee Tuesday that metropolis workers may even “undertake an accounting of every payment that was made by the city to date” and examine the professionals and cons of continuous the connection with LMCH and the HCI.
“And we’ll do an assessment of the software in the various modules for use here in London, and that’ll be focused on the business, not from an IT perspective,” mentioned Feldberg.
“Once that’s complete, we’ll work with our IT folks to bring forward a technology and project management plan.”
London metropolis workers is predicted to report again to the committee late this summer time.
