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The Michigan State Housing Development Authority partnered with Kinetech to distribute $1.2 billion across multiple federal household assistance programs. The performance demonstrated under the first program unlocked additional federal funding for the state. One operating model. Multiple programs. Five years and counting.
When Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020, Michigan received an initial $660 million allocation under the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority was tasked with administering the funds. Sixty-five percent of the allocation, roughly $429 million, had to be distributed by September 30, 2021, or risk losing the remaining balance. Additional federal funding was on the table for states that demonstrated they could execute.
The work was complicated by what MSHDA had committed to: delivery through more than 80 local Housing Assessment and Resource Agencies, sensitive household data including income, identity, and housing status moving across multiple parties, federal program rules that would change as guidance was issued, and a citizen-facing application that had to work on a phone for residents applying from home.
The traditional path was a multi-year procurement, a custom build, or an off-the-shelf platform configured by the vendor over six to nine months. Michigan did not have that time. The state needed a working operational platform in weeks, configured by the state's own program team after launch, and capable of running not just the first emergency program but the multi-program portfolio that was about to arrive.
That was the operating model MSHDA needed. The technology had to enable the operating model.
MSHDA selected Kinetech as the partner to deliver the operating platform. Working alongside MSHDA's program team and the Department of Technology Management and Budget, Kinetech configured the platform to Michigan's specific eligibility rules, document requirements, agency network, and reporting needs.
The Emergency Rental Assistance program reached production in less than 30 days. Residents applied through a mobile-first portal that worked across Windows, Android, and iOS. Applications were validated against US Postal Service deliverable address data and automatically routed to the appropriate local agency by zip code and county, using state-configured allocation weights. Caseworkers at each agency saw only their own assigned cases, working from queues sized to their capacity. Applicants received automated status updates as their cases moved through the review process.
Underneath, the operating model was the thing that mattered. The platform handled intake, eligibility, casework, document processing, fund tracking with attribution across funding sources, and federal reporting on one record per household. The state's program team controlled the configuration. When federal guidance changed, when a new round of funding opened, when a new program launched, Michigan's team made the change.
Over the next five years, the same platform expanded to administer additional federal household assistance programs as funding arrived: the Michigan Homeowner Assistance Fund (MIHAF), the Michigan Homeowner Opportunity and Preservation Initiative (MI-HOPE), and rental development assistance. Each new program reused the operating model: one application per household, evaluated against every program the household might qualify for; braided funding tracked to the source for federal audit; caseworker queues for the agencies delivering the work; and real-time visibility for MSHDA leadership across the whole portfolio.
A family applying for rental assistance may be the same family that qualifies for homeowner assistance, weatherization, or another program added next. The operating model captured that reality and treated it as the design point. The federal report was generated from the live data. The federal audit was answered from the same record that started as the application.
By 2026, more than 500,000 applications have been processed on the platform. More than $1.2 billion has been distributed across the programs. The performance on the first federal program demonstrated the state's execution capacity, earning Michigan an additional $360 million in performance-based federal funding.
"Going into this, we did a lot of analysis and felt that the only way to do this effectively was with Kinetech and low-code. Ultimately, the results speak for themselves."
- Mark Whitaker, Director of IT, Michigan State Housing Development Authority
The Kinetech platform meets the security and accessibility standards required by public agencies. Today, the platform behind Kinetech's household assistance work is delivered as Conductor for Household Assistance with the following standards:
SOC 2 Type II
FedRAMP authorized at the platform level (Mendix Cloud for Government)
NIST 800-53
WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility
For MSHDA, all data is geographically located in the continental United States. All data is owned by the State of Michigan. Personal identifying information is encrypted at rest. All caseworkers authenticate through multi-factor authentication. Role-based access controls operate at the data model level, with each Housing Assessment and Resource Agency seeing only its own assigned cases. The audit trail records every change to every record and is retained per state and federal requirements.
A modern operating model treats the household as the unit, not the program. Most agencies run their programs on separate systems because the systems were procured separately. Households don't experience their lives that way. A family that needs rental assistance, energy assistance, and weatherization assistance is one household, three programs, three eligibility evaluations, and one audit-grade record. The platform either supports that, or the staff compensates for it manually.
Configuration belongs to the program team. When federal guidance changes, when a new program launches, when a funding round opens, the system has to keep up. If the system requires a development ticket every time, the system is the constraint. If the program team can make the change themselves, the program runs at the speed the work actually demands.
Execution is what earns additional funding. Performance-based federal funding rewards states that can demonstrate they have effectively distributed the first allocation. The platform that supports the demonstration also produces the audit trail and reporting that proves the case to the federal program office.
Delivery networks need walls, not silos. Michigan delivered through 80+ local agencies on one platform, with each agency seeing only its own work. That is the operating model for any state running a multi-agency network on shared infrastructure: one platform, walled data, central visibility for the state.
The conversation begins with a 30-minute discussion of your current programs, operating model, and how Conductor for Household Assistance would fit. Whether you are running one federal program or a multi-program portfolio, we can show you how it works on the platform.
Questions? Get In Touch
Craig Smith, Partner, Kinetech PSN
craig.smith@kinetechcloud.com
(773) 230-5157