Housing & Education Alliance Automates Counseling Services

Housing and Education Alliance (HEA), a HUD-approved counseling agency in Tampa, Fla., has selected IndiSoft’s RxOffice CMS as their HUD-certified client management system (CMS) to meet the growing demand for counseling services.

The devastating economic effects of the pandemic will linger for some time. This is becoming clearer from the mounting demand for housing and financial counseling from HUD-certified counselors. In addition, the volume of pre-purchase housing counseling is at record levels due to the robust housing market.

Housing-related relief programs in President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) are also driving counseling agencies’ operational readiness planning. The ARP provides significant funding for housing-related assistance through the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program and the Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF). 

“These new relief programs will increase demand for counseling as consumers will need help understanding and navigating the application processes for these initiatives, especially where foreclosure alternative counseling is necessary,” said Sylvia Alvarez, HEA founder and executive director.

The HAF will require mortgage servicer interaction since relief funds must primarily be allocated for mortgage loss mitigation options. The application process can be very complex as the U.S. Department of the Treasury, servicers and consumer advocates are working to create processing guidelines before HAF funds are distributed to eligible homeowners during the third quarter of this year.

Another program in the ARP that is triggering counseling agencies to begin capacity planning and technology upgrades is the Housing Stability Counseling Program (HSCP). 

The HSCP provides a $100 million grant to the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation for counseling services. These funds will support housing counseling provided directly to households facing housing instability, such as eviction, default, foreclosure, loss of income or homelessness.

The HSCP is intended to support the delivery of housing counseling services by HUD-approved housing counseling intermediaries, state housing finance agencies and the housing counseling agencies with whom they subgrant or contract. Grant funds will be awarded to organizations that have demonstrated experience in providing housing counseling services to households facing housing instability

Hans Rusli, IndiSoft’s CEO stated, “We are making enhancements to RxOffice CMS to facilitate compliance with the HSCP and to increase efficiencies through our workflow and case-type functionality so counselors may serve as many citizens as possible in a cost-effective and efficient manner,” said Hans Rusli, IndiSoft CEO.

Housing and Education Alliance, (HEA) is a 501 (c) 3 HUD Certified Housing Counseling Agency that was founded in 2002 to provide culturally sensitive bilingual housing counseling services. HEA provides complete housing services to residents throughout Central Florida who want to purchase a home or who are seeking foreclosure prevention services. The staff has more than 100 years of combined experience in real estate, mortgage, counseling, economic development and business. As an affiliate of The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and a member of their NCLR Homeownership Network (NHN), HEA can bring additional resources to help the residents of the communities it serves.