A paper-based agency buying its first document system.
Reno Housing Authority is one of only thirty-nine housing authorities in the country in HUD's Moving to Work program. It owns 764 units of public housing and supports more than 2,500 low-income families — and it ran on paper.
The risk was not choosing the wrong system. The risk was choosing without knowing what to ask for.
Founded in 1943, RHA manages 764 units of public housing across eight locations in Reno and Sparks, owns 165 rental properties for low-income households, and supports more than 2,500 families through rental assistance and neighborhood stabilization.
The agency was one hundred percent paper-based, and no one on staff had procured an electronic document management system before. Going to market without that experience is where agencies overpay for the wrong thing.
Avèro was retained to review the current state, define what the agency actually needed, and run the procurement to a defensible conclusion.
The deliverables.
Current-state assessment
A structured review of existing document management policies, processes, tools, resources, security, and inventory, built from interviews with stakeholders and executives across Admissions, Asset Management, Development, Section 8, HR, and the MTW program.
Requirements traceability matrix
Every requirement set out in a matrix that vendors complete as part of their response, so their answers can be charted and compared on the same basis — and so they can be held to those answers after signature.
RFP bid document
A procurement-ready bid document including the scoring matrix, vendor qualifications, a standardized reference sheet, the current-state analysis, and the agency's future-state vision.
Evaluation and selection
Coordination of the pre-bid conference, analysis of submitted responses, reference calls, and the evaluation that led to a selection the agency could defend.
Implementation oversight
Avèro acts as liaison between the agency and the selected vendor through implementation, holding timeline and budget and logging issues as they surface.
Status and outlook.
Where it stands
The bid document was issued in January 2021. Avèro carried the agency through evaluation and into implementation oversight.
Why it matters
Sector experience is the difference between a requirements document that describes the work and one that describes a brochure. Avèro had procured EDMS solutions for public housing authorities before.
In their words
“No one on staff had the experience procuring an EDMS solution. Avèro had the industry knowledge we were looking for, and they had worked with public housing authorities before.” — Samantha Arellano, IT Director
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