Housing status

Use with caution: Available

Provides a way to ask Veterans about their current housing situation that allows them to answer questions accurately.

Usage

When to use this pattern

Asking users for their housing or living situation or status. For example, when asking whether a user is facing housing instability or may not have a permanent mailing address.

When not to use this pattern

When the API used by the form cannot accommodate the information. This pattern can potentially gather additional information beyond address, such as point of contact, that must be stored in a system of record and thus must be handled by an API.

Examples

An example of asking users for their housing status in a mobile viewport. — An example of asking users for housing status in a mobile viewport.

Examples in production

20-10207 Request priority processing for an existing claim

Other relevant examples

A similar set of questions were used in Treasury’s Emergency Rental Assistance programs. Questions were co-created and reviewed by members of Treasury and HUD.

How to design and build

Anatomy

An annotated example of asking users for their housing status. — An annotated example of asking users for housing status.

How this pattern works

Using a list of questions or criteria has been found in some situations to be more effective than asking a yes/no question about homelessness. The series of criteria help users to self-identify and communicate that they are experiencing housing instability.

Answering in the affirmative to any of the first 5 options (seen in the examples above) sends the user to a conditional page that asks if the user has a mailing address:

An example of asking users if they have a current mailing address.

Answering in the affirmative to “I have another housing risk not listed here” sends the user to a page that collects other housing risks and then to the page asking the user for a mailing address.

An example of asking users for other housing risks. — An example of asking a user if they have other housing risks.

Answering in the affirmative to “None of these situations apply to me” sends the user to the mailing address page which users our address pattern. They do not see the conditional page asking if they have a mailing address or not.

In addition, it may be appropriate to ask the user for a point of contact to assist us in contacting the person submitting the form.

An example of asking the user for a point of contact. — An example of asking a user for a point of contact.