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Notes from inside housing authority operations.

Recerts, lease-ups, the phone line, and HUD deadlines — written by the people who build and run PHC with housing authorities every day. No gated PDFs.

StrategyAugust 4, 2026 · 9 min read

What McKinsey's 2026 Public-Sector AI Report Actually Means for Housing Authorities

The report is being quoted at every housing conference this fall. Most of the quoting stops at the headline number. The parts that matter for a PHA are further down.

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In this article

  • McKinsey scored the public sector 28 out of 100 on AI maturity, against a cross-industry average of 33 — the gap is execution, not access to models.
  • About 70% of AI programs that redesign a whole service domain reach production, versus about 30% of programs built around a single isolated use case.
  • Roughly 60% of AI's value comes from redesigning the workflow, not from bolting a model onto the existing one.
Operations8 min read

Why Your Housing Authority's Phones Never Stop Ringing

Adding another phone line, another IVR menu, or another temp does not reduce call volume. Finishing the cases that generate the calls does.

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Strategy7 min read

An AI Call Center Is Not a Workflow. Know Which One You're Buying.

Both categories are being sold with the same words. They produce very different numbers at the end of a quarter.

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Procurement9 min read

14 Questions to Ask an AI Vendor Before Your PHA Signs Anything

Demos are built to succeed. These are the questions that find out what happens on your data, on a Tuesday, in month seven.

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Compliance8 min read

HOTMA's January 1, 2027 Deadline: An Operational Readiness Checklist

Your software vendor will handle the calculation changes. What they will not handle is the file gaps, the policy decisions, and the several thousand conversations with households.

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Operations9 min read

How to Clear an Annual Recertification Backlog Without Hiring

Backlogs are almost never a staffing shortfall. They are a queueing problem with one dominant bottleneck, and it is usually not the part your specialists are doing.

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Operations8 min read

The RFTA Blockers That Burn the Voucher Clock

A voucher holder gets at least 60 days to find a unit. Most of what burns that clock happens after they already found one.

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Compliance7 min read

EIV Discrepancies and 50058 Errors: Catch Them Before the Monitor Does

Nobody discovers a discrepancy during a monitoring review. They rediscover one that has been sitting in the file for eighteen months.

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The proof is on your caseload, not in a deck.

Housing authorities run PHC daily. Bring a real recert or a real RFTA packet, and we'll show you what comes out the other end — with your staff approving every determination.