Policy & Practice | Summer 2023

technology speaks

By Paula Hildebrand

Opportunity in Crisis: A Nevada County’s Race to Prevent Homelessness

O ne of the most immediate economic impacts of COVID-19 was on housing. Within the first weeks and months of the pandemic, businesses were closed; workers were furloughed or lost jobs; and suddenly, once-steady pay checks that were integral to paying rent had dried up, putting thousands of families suddenly at risk of eviction. This was particularly evident in Clark County, Nevada—the home of Las Vegas, one of the country’s premier hotspots for tourism, and an area economically wracked by casino, hotel, and convention closures. With the local economy ground to a halt, nearly 250,000 people—more than 10 percent of Clark County’s population—suddenly faced risks of widespread evictions. Drawing on federal funding from the CARES Act and leveraging two new technology solutions developed within just 11 weeks—an AI-enabled pre screening chatbot and a mobile-friendly citizen engagement portal—the Clark County Department of Social Services was able to quickly and easily connect thousands of families to rental assis tance, helping to stave off evictions. Clark County’s story marks a major inflection point in the ability for public agencies to utilize new tech solutions, backed by the right vendor partners, to quickly mobilize direct social assistance to citizens and advance economic mobility. Reducing the Burden on Caseworkers While the initial housing crisis caused by the pandemic may have

application; those who weren’t were screened out of the process. As a result, the chatbot was able to not only accelerate access to benefits applications, it was also able to take on 122,000 inquiries that would have oth erwise fallen to the caseworkers. At the time, Clark County caseworkers were receiving as many benefits applications for eligible citizens as they were for inel igible ones; having to manually process and file each would have grounded operations to a halt, and impeded benefits access for eligible applicants. By leveraging an AI-backed, self-service chatbot to help select ineligible appli cants out of the pipeline—and provide informative choices to those who did qualify—county caseworkers were able to dedicate their time and energy to cases where their assistance was most needed, while keeping the overall applications timeline moving along as quickly as possible.

eased, the need to quickly and intui tively connect citizens to the assistance they need—and weed out ineligible applicants along the way—remains. And caseworkers still need all the help they can get to do that. Maximizing social mobility and empowering the caseworkers who enable that process means lightening their load. Automating application processes and deploying tools to screen out ineligible applicants before they can submit an application can reduce the workload on the caseworkers who already have their hands full with eligible applicants. AI-enabled chatbots are an effective way of facilitating this automation. In Clark County’s case, a chatbot was used to pre-screen applicants, asking questions to determine whether or not applicants were truly eligible for financial assistance. Those deemed eligible were directed to the link to the

Illustration by Chris Campbell

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