As a social worker, Caroline Caselli witnessed first-hand the challenges San Francisco’s homeless community faced when applying for affordable housing.
Whereas middle-and-upper class families could apply for a mortgage online, the economically challenged typically had to ride a bus to a specified location to get a paper copy of a housing application -- and then return once ready to submit it.
They were then added to a wait list where they could wait two to 10 years for placement. In the meantime, they had to respond to an annual letter confirming they were still looking for affordable housing. If, for some reason, they had changed address and did not receive the letter, they were removed from the wait list and had to start the process anew.
“I thought that was pretty unfair considering a lot of people could apply for mortgages online," Caselli said. "I thought you should be able to do the same for affordable housing."
Curious about how to solve the issue for her clients, Caselli worked with the California State government to change an administrative policy in 2015 that would allow electronic signatures of affordable housing applicants.
But Caselli took it a step further and sought a way to make the entire affordable housing process more accessible.
The social worker turned social entrepreneur founded the first version of Haven Connect in 2014 and incorporated it last year before announcing her company’s move to Austin this week.
The online platform makes the affordable housing process easier for applicants by making applications available in one digital location. Property managers and their applicants can communicate in a secure, regulatory-compliant and cost-effective submission system.
“The gap we’re filling is two-fold," Caselli said. "It’s access to government services; specifically access to government subsidized housing, and we’re helping to fill that gap by improving access. On the property management side, a process that was previously tedious has been replaced with an easy, simple solution to communicate with applicants over a long period of time and to fill vacancies faster.”
Currently, there are up to 3,000 applications submitted to each affordable housing unit. Property managers take two to six weeks to fill their units.
“The reason for that is two-fold. One, there are hyper-specific tenant attributes that property managers are required to screen for,” Caselli said. “The second is that there are hyper-specific income and asset requirements for each unit, and so what we have just raised money to build is a tool to help applicants go through that screening.”
Using Haven Connect, property managers can manage their wait list more efficiently while centralizing communications throughout their entire portfolios.
"Austin is clearly the right place for us in terms of there is a real culture of innovation as well as being super business-friendly."
The platform has a list of affordable housing properties accepting applications. Availability depends on whether applications are open, closed or ongoing. Applicants can reuse their data to apply for different properties and update said data.
The property manager can then communicate with applicants about their status through email, letters and text messages.
Haven Connect is available in Texas, California, Massachusetts and New York. There are 5,400 units on the platform, but the company expects that to grow to 30,000 units by yearend.
“We’re really excited to grow the team," Caselli said. "We’re hiring for engineers, account executives, product managers and operations managers."
Haven Connect’s team was part of Techstars Impact Accelerator cohort in Austin. On Tuesday, it announced its $2.4 million seed round and the relocation of its headquarters to Austin.
Caselli said participating in the accelerator was the catalyst for the decision to move to Austin. She said that city’s tech forward-thinking and cost-effectiveness were both huge draws.
“Austin is clearly the right place for us in terms of there is a real culture of innovation as well as being super business-friendly,” Caselli said. “That is part of the reason we’re so excited to be here. I got here on Wednesday, and I was here for three months last summer. So far, so fabulous.”
