Distributing Critical Financial Aid and Making Citizen Life Easier with the City of San Antonio and Kinetech

For the City of San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the United States, the onset of COVID-19 in March prompted a spike in citizen need for financial assistance to cover critical housing expenses. The City went from receiving roughly 50 – 60 applications for housing and utility assistance each week to over 2,000. Traditionally applications were submitted in person and caseworkers contacted each individual to validate their information – steps that became near impossible in the wake of a global pandemic. In response, city officials acted quickly, partnering with Kinetech to develop a responsive web application that could scale while balancing speed and security. In this session, you’ll see how:

• The team developed an end-to-end solution in just 12 days that assists with each step of the process from intake to automated notifications to cash assistance disbursement with a team of two developers and business stakeholders from the City.
• The application is offering citizens greater transparency and reducing processing times from a month to only a week.
• Since its creation, the application has helped the City to distribute millions in relief to its most vulnerable populations, improving the citizen experience and keeping households afloat during a crisis.