TECHNOLOGY HANDLES THE ROUTINE. PEOPLE HANDLE THE EXCEPTIONS. None of this means housing providers should abandon automation. Technology is incredibly useful when it is handling routine, repeatable tasks. The key is knowing where automation should stop. Software platforms can recognize when rent hasn’t been posted by a certain date. What it cannot do is understand the context behind that late payment or decide whether a resident may be raising an accommodation issue. That requires a person who knows what to listen for. A meaningful difference exists between a resident saying, “I forgot to pay. Can you remove the fee?” and a resident explaining that a disability-related circumstance affects when their income becomes available. The second conversation may need to move out of the normal collections process and into the property’s reasonable accommodation process.
THE IMPLEMENTATION GAP
Even when the accommodation process works as intended, one more step remains: making sure the system follows the decision. An employee may approve the accommodation but forget to update the account. The late fee may be removed, but the delinquency notice still goes out. A software update could reset an override. Another employee may see a balance and start collection activity without realizing an accommodation is already in place. Any of these situations can turn an otherwise well-handled request into a resident complaint. From the resident’s perspective, the internal explanation matters far less than the result. If they were told they could pay on an adjusted schedule but the system keeps penalizing them, the accommodation isn’t working as intended.
AN EMPLOYEE MAY APPROVE THE ACCOMMODATION BUT FORGET TO UPDATE THE ACCOUNT.
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