Momentum Episode 39:
How AI is Transforming Affordable Housing

What happens when housing authorities ditch paper for powerful automation?

Craig Patterson, CEO of Patterson & Associates Consulting, has helped agencies cut waitlist costs by 70%, slash manual data entry by 80%, and connect with residents faster than ever.

In this episode, Craig shares how Jotform Enterprise and AI Agents are transforming housing from paper pain to powerful performance.

Welcome to Momentum, a podcast by Jotform where we talk about the technology, productivity tips, insights, and best practices that help us move forward in business and in life.

Let's get started. Three, two, one, liftoff. We have a liftoff. Maintaining momentum.

Hi, Craig. Welcome to the show. So nice to have you on.

Thanks, Patrick. It's a pleasure to be here and a privilege.

I'm super excited to dive deep into all things housing authority and how you work with all the agencies and all of that fun stuff.

Yeah, it's going to be a good talk.

Well, we love what we do. It's a much needed service for the community and we just feel privileged to be able to assist people with technology in ways that really touch people.

That's great to hear. Always like when we can feel like we're doing something good out in the world.

Anytime Jotform can help a person such as yourself do some good out in the community, it always makes me happy.

Well, thank you. I look forward to helping the discussion and perhaps any listeners can benefit too.

That's what it's all about and that's what I like about Jotform. Very easy flowing, very community based, if you will.

Yeah, for sure. Well, let's start at the beginning and kind of introduce you.

You have been working in housing authority for a really long time, like since the 80s, right?

Yes. I never thought I would be in this business when I went to college. I went to college to be a mechanical engineer, a computer science guy.

Like most of us, I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, found myself in need of housing, and a friend offered me a maintenance position, which had free room and board in the Bay Area.

That's huge, right? Then he found out I was an engineer and could do some programming.

So back in those days, I started some software programming, and that's what got me into housing authority management, operations, and software.

Wow. That's quite the change from mechanical engineering.

Do you mind walking through how your career started and what led to you launching your own consulting firm?

Good question. I was living in Richmond, California at an affordable housing complex, performing after-hours maintenance just to get a free bedroom in a three-bedroom, two-bath unit.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

One day I was walking by the office and back in the day we had K-Pro computers and two floppy drives on a portable suitcase. They were trying to catalog license plates and track parking spots and stickers.

I said, hey, I can throw that together in D-Base too, no problem. And that's when it all began.

From there, I started writing software programs for others who were doing repetitive jobs with forms. Back in those days, we had NCR forms with carbons in between.

Every time there was a rent change, if there were 300 units, they had to write those 300 times. So I came up with a software program that just put them on an Okidata printer and boom, life began.

It started to grow from Craig Patterson Consulting. Then when I would go back and work for a housing authority, I worked at the Alameda Housing Authority, Alameda County Housing Authority, San Pablo Housing Authority, Richmond Housing Authority.

It started to grow from there as executive director. Then my wife would take over. When the kids started to join, it became Patterson and Associates as we started to accumulate other consultants.

In 2000, we moved it to San Antonio because it was easier to get around the country. It's centrally located.

From San Francisco, you know what it's like going over the bridge to get to the airport everywhere in the country. Here, it's pretty centrally located and makes it a lot easier.

Yeah, I would imagine that really helps. Plus the housing cost.

Yes, there's that too. So you kind of jump around all of the major markets.

Yes, we started doing consulting for DMG Maximus, which was on the New York Stock Exchange, and we started to grow our own practice along with that.

We've been HUD subcontractors for PricewaterhouseCoopers and other large firms because of our subject matter expertise in housing operations and efficiency.

It started to become an efficiency operation, then digital transformation, and then after Y2K.

We've been through all those transitions and the differences in data management and handling. We've even watched Jotform grow over its evolution.

How long have you been with Jotform?

We started with Jotform before COVID kind of warped time a little bit. When it was just forms more so than anything else.

I think right after it had a name change. It was nice because you could pull in little features, but it didn't have the breadth it has now, so to speak.

It didn't have the integrations. We watched that integration curve because we were Docusign and Adobe PDF document users.

Everybody was using Adobe, and then Jotform started to enter that picture. We kept an eye on it because we were always wanting a little bit more.

We loved the way Jotform started to bring those tools to the table for us.

Yeah, you've been there for the whole evolution, really. Kind of crazy.

Your firm, you serve over 100 clients. Is that right?

We have served over 100 clients. Usually have about eight to 10 that we are currently serving or others that are using some of our solutions in place still.

That ranges from the Virgin Islands all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. We have served overseas for housing authorities because housing authorities are worldwide.

Most of our work is domestic here in the United States.

Can you paint a picture of what kind of organizations you work with and what problems you specifically solve?

Absolutely. We serve affordable housing providers, often funded by local city, county, or state government, sometimes federal.

They get funds through the Department of Housing and Urban Development or through tax credits, which help offset the cost of building affordable developments.

If they don't have as high a tax debt, they can make rents more affordable.

The benefits are that when people have a place to stay and are working, these are for working families in many cases, it helps the community and local economy.

The challenges include the need for housing, the homeless, and the underhoused who don't have adequate housing, such as a parent and three children occupying one room.

We serve clients that try to reach out to those who don't have proper adequate housing.

I hate to use the term decent, safe, and sanitary because who would want to stay at a hotel that's just decent, safe, and sanitary? We want quality, affordable housing for everyone.

Keeping track of people who don't have an address is the challenge.

It comes with a lot of challenges, but it sounds like you're doing amazing work out in the community, fighting for the little guys.

Jumping to the challenges before Jotform Enterprise, what did a typical waitlist update process look like?

Maybe go into what a waitlist looks like.

Let's say you have 100 or 1,000 apartments available for rental. People need to put in an application. That paper document would need to get entered into a computer so the housing agency could contact you when units become available.

In former days, the primary way was by mail. But if you don't have adequate housing or are staying with a friend, the address update can't be forwarded or found, so people fall off the waitlist even after years.

The cost of postage has gone up even for government agencies and the reliability of delivery is an issue. Many don't even look at physical mail anymore.

You'd have to send it back, fill it out, send it back, read handwriting, re-enter into a computer, find out if you still qualify, then send more paperwork about income, children, citizenship, all transmitted by paper.

Sounds like a very frustrating process.

We've heard several times that the paper-based process was a nightmare trying to read it and put it into a database.

Especially for someone like yourself who's been dealing with that for 40 years.

If you have to contact a bank or social worker for verification and send paper, one piece turns into a hydra of papers and processes. It's more than saving a few trees.

Were there any particular incidences or wake-up calls that made you realize things had to change?

Yes. We were working in Chicago and tasked with helping do a waitlist update for 100,000 people. Imagine 100,000 pieces of mail sent out.

In four days, we had 65,000 returned envelopes, undeliverable.

Opening them and hiring temps to open, scan, track, and look at them was overwhelming. Then you have to send a second notice to confirm the first didn't make it.

We were also getting replies from people verifying income and location. That was a wake-up call that you can't do it that way.

You can't get temp staff to do it. You burn people out.

You started transferring over to a digital-based process pretty early on. When did you first start going digital?

2003, 2004 is when we felt there were adequate systems to start that. Even if we had to send a letter, you could dial a phone number and capture something digitally.

With touchtone phones, you could at least say yes, it's me. Identity theft wasn't as big an issue then, but technology nuances have added to the need for additional technology to ensure we get the right person.

When did Jotform enter the picture?

Jotform entered the picture four years ago. We'd been using tools like Docusign, DocuWare, Nintex, all with great features.

What drew our attention was Jotform's ability to integrate with Zapier and Make, a game changer.

The speed we can deploy Jotform, its ease of use, makes it a great front end for many other systems.

With its tables and growing sophistication, Jotform is the first thing we think of. How can we get this into Jotform?

I read your case study and saw that Jotform cut waitlist handling costs by 70%. Is that true?

Yes, that's right off the top and easy to prove.

For example, if we send a notice via mail with a QR Code, a person can scan it with their phone and update data using that QR Code synced to their data file.

Instead of a two-week turnaround, we've seen updates within three days, with data updated automatically through automation, saving time and costs.

It gets better. Suppose we send the notice via text message and the person responds, cutting outgoing and incoming mail costs.

Those savings reduce people's anxiety because they get confirmation their data was received from Jotform.

That's pretty incredible.

You've also cut manual data entry by 80%. How did you achieve those numbers?

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Rather than one individual being the bottleneck of data input, people can enter their needs directly on a Jotform on their phone with no wait time.

Jotform allows us to communicate multilingual, so customers can select their language, making them feel understood and appreciated, which makes humans more valuable.

That's a game changer. Paper-based forms can't do that effectively.

Could you share a specific example where Jotform changed the game?

In New Haven, Connecticut, they needed to update their wait list after years. What would normally take six months, we did in 30 days.

We sent a notice and let them know we needed information back in 30 days. On the 30th day, data was already updated.

We didn't have to hire temps, train them, or give user passwords. Jotform took painful paperwork and made it powerful by productivity.

How has Jotform helped you reach people without permanent mailing addresses?

Imagine trying to reach people on your waiting list who never got a notice because they lived with relatives and mail only gets forwarded so far.

If there's a QR Code on the website, people can scan it to update their application.

Or the agency can send SMS or email with a link to the Jotform update form.

People don't read mail or email as much, but SMS and text messaging are the number one way to reach people without an address.

Relatives and community programs often give homeless people cell phones, their means of connecting with the world.

That's a huge step. Almost everyone has a cell phone now, even if it's not fancy, as long as they can update their info on the web.

What's the human cost of paper-based processes in real life?

Imagine a hardworking single parent in Chicago who has to get paperwork back to the housing authority by a deadline.

It's snowing, they've dropped kids off at daycare, and now have to take time off work to deliver paperwork and wait in line, wondering what will happen.

There's a human cost and additional time.

Imagine elderly people in Arizona waiting hours in line in the heat to get an application logged because they're worried about losing their place.

Automation with Jotform helps challenge those real human issues. How long you can stay in line shouldn't determine housing qualification.

You mentioned unexpected health benefits from going paperless. Can you elaborate?

I'll try to be humorous. Remember turning in paper homework that could have been balled up in your pocket? Imagine where that paper has been.

Now put that paper on a copy machine with a blower circulating air. The copy machine and office air become contaminated.

Every fresh piece of paper put into the copy machine becomes a soup combination mix, affecting air quality.

Now I never want to touch another piece of paper again.

One way is to scan paper as soon as it comes in, then hand it back to the individual.

That becomes a managed digital document where we can extract data and verify with Jotform, eliminating paper files.

Imagine public agencies with paperwork hit by a hurricane. Files get destroyed and circulate in the environment, risking social security numbers.

That amplifies disaster impact with paper documents.

I have a map showing how disasters affect these things across the country. Not only do the homeless increase, but people who had homes become homeless.

Beyond the human cost, people trying to get on wait lists with paper is unreliable.

I was there during the Oakland Hills fire. It happens more frequently. Coastal housing agencies are encouraged to go paperless so people can work remotely if they can't get to the office.

That was huge during COVID when everything had to go digital. Were you mostly digital when COVID hit?

We were mostly digital. As a consultant who used to do over 50 flights a year, I bought a laptop to do Zoom meetings instead of traveling.

COVID helped advance and accelerate online collaboration. Agencies that didn't go digital were jumpstarted to do so, though some are undecided due to investments in file cabinets and archives.

It is accelerating.

We started this podcast during COVID to continue talking to users and hear their stories. It opened floodgates to connect remotely.

Remote interviews became common, helping people avoid travel. It's helped us think differently in a good way.

I'm interested in how you started incorporating AI Agents, which is relatively new. You've developed AI Agents for procurement, technical support, and more. What do these agents do and how did you implement them?

Everyone knows ChatGPT and AI. I created an agent using Notebook LM that wouldn't hallucinate. I fed it tax data and it gave amazing suggestions.

When Jotform released their tool, you can train it to avoid hallucination by relying on agency or enterprise data we feed it.

I fed it rules, regulations, policies, and procedures for clients and tested it. One agent looked like me and used my middle name.

Because it was trained on specific info, it was fast and accurate.

We realized it can be customized for federal and local policies, giving consistent employee orientation or answering wait list questions.

For example, someone with arthritis who can't write or use a computer can call a Jotform AI Agent and give wait list info by phone.

You're using the phone side of things on the agent. That's cool. I haven't talked to anyone using that yet.

That's a cool use case I never thought of when toying with AI Agents, helping people who can't type or use their hands.

I help many with dementia. You don't want to correct them all the time, but you can correct yourself.

I took a friend's voice with permission and simulated it using online tools. We can use labs to remember things like appointments.

He can call himself and ask what's going on today, and the agent responds with personalized info.

I think in the future everyone will have an agent like a mobile device. It's just a matter of time.

That's a really cool, innovative way of using an agent to help someone with dementia.

That's why I love these conversations; I hear completely different, cool use cases.

With the Internet of Things, you can have sensors on doors, refrigerators, water valves to monitor daily patterns in senior properties non-intrusively.

An AI Agent can analyze sensor data in Jotform Tables and send alerts if patterns deviate, like not eating or moving.

That's amazing. What kind of sensors are you using? Motion or open-close sensors?

Just motion or open-close sensors to detect refrigerator use or door openings.

Is that in practice now?

It's in development and being tested.

Very cool. You better patent that.

We have other ideas but don't mind sharing that one because if someone beats me to it, they'll help more people.

Can you walk me through a real-life example where an AI Agent saved significant time or resources?

Sure. We took a contract and used a Jotform AI Agent as an assistant legal counsel to review it for risks.

The AI found a clause limiting work to two agencies in a state, which could have caused competition issues.

How many legal counselors would it have taken to find that? That's one way AI saved time.

Another is generating responses for maintenance requests. We created a maintenance worker AI loaded with plans, specs, and links.

People can call and ask about a leaking faucet and get the top four probable causes.

These are amazing, outside-the-box examples.

How do you integrate Jotform with tools like Docusign, Smartsheet, and Zapier to deliver complete solutions?

We do digital AI readiness assessments, looking at software inventory and how tools communicate.

Almost every tool will have built-in AI that needs to talk to each other, either directly or via Zapier or Make.com.

For example, Smartsheet can be integrated with Jotform using Make.com without API programming.

At a Nevada housing authority, we spun up a system where lobby visitors type their info, get on a waiting board, and Smartsheet tracks wait times.

We also collect bidder responses on government contracts via Jotform attachments, date and time stamped.

We use Jotform integrated with Zapier, Make.com, Smartsheet, and Docuware extensively.

The next big evolution is getting all AIs to recognize and interact with each other.

You recently became a Jotform reseller. What opportunities do you see in that role?

We don't resell just anything. We deliver smart, intelligent solutions tied together.

Jotform acts as mortar between many products. We have robotic processes feeding into or from Jotform.

Every public agency has forms to collect information and start processes. Jotform's workflow capabilities are instrumental.

Smaller agencies without big budgets or IT staff benefit from Jotform and our expertise.

We build, deploy, and maintain solutions for them in their own Jotform environment for data privacy.

That's why and how we became a Jotform reseller, simplifying the process for clients.

Thank you. I saw you're about to present to 150 housing authorities. How did that come about and what's your core message?

We've been members of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials for decades.

We were invited to present on AI and intelligent automation at a regional NARO meeting in Arkansas.

We featured Jotform and agents trained on local housing authority data.

Attendees were impressed and recommended presentations for small housing authorities nationwide.

We hope to help many agencies with packages featuring Jotform, Smartsheet, Docuware, depending on needs.

You're like a foot soldier for Jotform, showing people something that really helps and makes life easier.

When people hear the agent talk and pick a voice, engagement increases. We tailor how the agent addresses people.

We program it to accelerate to human intervention if needed and help more people outside business hours.

There's stigma around AI, but your use cases give hope for AI's potential to help people, especially elderly or those with dementia.

It's really cool to see.

Where do you see AI and automation taking government housing work in the next five years?

AI will assist not just staff but individuals. In the past, housing authorities helped people get Gmail to contact them.

In five years, people will be assigned an AI that keeps track of their family and info. Agencies will talk to the AI, which will reach out to the person if needed.

Multiple government agencies can talk to an individual facilitated by AI, like an answering machine.

AI can help navigate websites and ask specific questions based on individual circumstances.

We pre-fill forms now, but imagine doing that intelligently with AI.

Wrapping up, you have a philosophy of the painful Ps and the powerful Ps. Can you elaborate?

Paperwork, policy, procedures, public interest, and public demand are all Ps that build up paperwork stuck in processes.

Procedures are often not understood, and agencies struggle to maintain productivity and privacy.

We want performance and to produce for the public. AI and assistants can eliminate productivity issues and turn them into high performance.

Once you digitize a process, you can track it. Manual paperwork makes it hard to know what's happening.

We ask agencies how many calls and emails they get about waitlists. Without a CRM, they don't know.

That's the painful Ps: paperwork, processes, procedures, productivity, and people limiting productivity.

That's a great philosophy.

For organizations hesitant to adopt paperless processes, what advice do you have?

If you don't adopt paperless, you will be made paperless. For example, an agency relying on paper lost documents due to retirement, flood, and hurricane.

Until you go paperless, you can't measure or make data-based decisions effectively.

I encourage going paperless wherever possible. There will always be some paper, but less over time.

Don't end up as a productive list.

Thank you so much, Craig. It's amazing to see what you're doing and the innovative AI Agent uses.

I look forward to hearing more about how AI Agents improve people's lives and paperwork.

Helping someone in a retirement community check on their parents or grandparents is inspiring.

Thank you for coming on the show. We appreciate the opportunity and look forward to more success stories with Jotform.