Before & After
- Housing professionals relied on a paper checklist to verify Fair Housing Act compliance on job sites
- Tracking progress across multiple construction projects simultaneously was impractical
- Measurements and reference diagrams had to be carried as separate printed documents
- No way to save progress between site visits or share updates digitally with colleagues
- Risk of losing paper records meant documentation gaps on complex projects
- Dynamic mobile app available in both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store
- Contractors upload and toggle between multiple projects within a single app session
- Measurements and visual diagrams for all 7 FHA accessibility requirements built in
- Progress tracked automatically — pick up exactly where you left off on any device
- Completed checklists emailable directly from the app for documentation and sign-off
The Challenge
Housing contractors have to verify that new construction meets the Fair Housing Act's 7 design and construction requirements before a project is complete. These aren't optional suggestions — they're federal law for multifamily housing built after 1991, and failing to meet them can expose developers, architects, and contractors to significant legal liability.
The Equal Rights Center had built a rigorous, government-backed paper checklist for exactly this purpose, developed and published under a HUD grant. It was thorough. It was authoritative. And it was completely stuck on paper.
In practice, contractors were losing track of which projects they'd completed, forgetting measurements between site visits, and had no way to collaborate digitally with architects or project managers. On large construction sites with multiple buildings, tracking compliance across every unit using paper forms was a logistical nightmare. Checklists got lost. Notes were illegible. Projects slipped through the cracks.
The ERC needed to bring this checklist into the 21st century — without losing any of the rigor that made it useful. That meant building something that contractors would actually use on a job site, not a document that would sit in a folder. It had to be fast, offline-capable, visually clear, and available on the phones contractors already carry.
The challenge wasn't just technical — it was about preserving the integrity of a government-backed compliance tool while making it genuinely usable in the field. Every requirement had to be represented accurately. Every diagram had to match the actual standard. The app had to be something a contractor could trust on the day of an inspection.
What We Built
Why not just make it a PDF or web form?
A PDF doesn't know where you are in a project. A web form requires a connection, can't save state easily between sessions, and offers no way to manage multiple projects in parallel. The Fair Housing Act compliance process isn't a one-time form — it's a workflow that happens across multiple site visits, multiple buildings, and multiple weeks.
A native mobile app was the only approach that could handle multi-project management, offline functionality, persistent state between sessions, embedded diagrams and measurements, and one-tap email export — all at once. We built native iOS and Android applications using Kotlin for the Android codebase and native iOS tooling, backed by Google Cloud Platform for account sync and data persistence.
How do contractors track multiple projects at once?
The app is built around a project dashboard. When a contractor opens the app, they see all their active projects. They can create a new project for each construction job, name it, and then work through the 7-requirement checklist within that project's context. Progress saves automatically after every interaction.
When a contractor leaves a job site and returns the next morning, they tap the project and pick up exactly where they left off. When they're managing a multi-building development, they create a sub-project for each building. The app organizes everything so that nothing falls through the cracks — even across weeks of construction activity.
What are the 7 Fair Housing accessibility requirements?
The Fair Housing Act's design and construction requirements for covered multifamily housing include seven specific areas: (1) an accessible building entrance on an accessible route; (2) accessible and usable public and common use areas; (3) usable doors throughout the unit; (4) an accessible route into and through the dwelling unit; (5) light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats, and environmental controls in accessible locations; (6) reinforced walls in bathrooms for the future installation of grab bars; and (7) usable kitchens and bathrooms where wheelchair-accessible maneuvering space exists.
Each requirement in the app includes the precise measurements required by the standard — door widths, turning radii, outlet heights — along with embedded diagrams showing the correct configuration. Contractors don't need to carry the paper checklist at all. Everything is in the app.
How does a contractor use the app on a job site?
A contractor arrives at a job site, opens the app, and selects the active project. They move through the 7 requirements in sequence, checking off each item as they verify it in the field. When a measurement is required, the app shows the exact spec. When a spatial configuration is required, the embedded diagram clarifies it visually.
When the inspection is complete, the contractor taps "Email Report" and the app generates a summary of all completed requirements and sends it directly to the project manager, architect, or compliance officer on file. The entire interaction — from opening the app to sending the report — takes minutes rather than the hours that paper-based documentation required.
The result is a tool that respects the contractor's time, meets the ERC's standards, and holds up to the rigor of a government-funded compliance program. It's now available in both app stores and used by contractors nationwide.
Results
+ Play Store
Funded
Tracking
Project Details
Have a compliance tool that needs to go mobile?
We turn government-backed standards and paper-based workflows into apps that people actually use in the field.