TL;DR

Discrimination Complaint Support Role

The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) at HUD offers a free investigation and adjudication process for housing discrimination complaints. Due to the vulnerable state people are often in (often facing eviction, homelessness, fear of retaliation from landlords) and the impact of processes can have on complainants, our team set out to learn more about the complainant journey and identify opportunities to improve FHEO processes.

As a result, our team leveraged secondary and primary research to develop recommendations for a new trauma-informed role. The role was designed to reduce the emotional burden that 500+ employees and thousands of participants experience during investigation of housing discrimination cases.

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Challenge

Understanding the Discrimination Complaint Journey and its Effects

The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) offers a free investigation and adjudication process for housing discrimination complaints. Due to the vulnerable state people are often in and the impact of FHEO processes can have on complainants lives, people participating in the complaint process can be re-traumatized or affected by the process itself. FHEO staff can face challenges in trying to address the unique situation each complainant faces without resources or tools to help navigate the investigation. FHEO wanted to learn more about the complainant journey and identify opportunities to improve processes.

The Team

Lean Team of 3

The design team had 3 dedicated members: 2 design strategists and 1 UX strategist and researcher (me) who managed the recruitment/scheduling logistics, secondary research, and research facilitation.

secondary research

Learning from Trauma-informed Best practices and Subject Matter Expertise

Our team conducted secondary research to gain a baseline understanding, which could inform the development of best practices and refinement training service offerings for staff at HUD. We gathered and reviewed resources online and connected with experts from a broader customer experience community practice. In reviewing these resources, the team identified key target areas to develop trauma-informed services.

The research gathered 27 resources from:
🏫 Academic research
📄 Online articles
📕 Books
📼 Videos
💻 Databases

Through the research we also identified and consulted with 9 subject matter experts (SMEs). We explored topics such as: frameworks, trauma-informed practices, secondary trauma, and trauma-design.

We then packaged our findings as an industry scan which was used to inform our work on best practices to ensure HUD staff is prepared to work with trauma survivors. We later used our findings to teach others about incorporating trauma-informed approaches into their work. Finally, we ensured that others at HUD could utilize our findings through a Trauma-informed Design Quick Reference Guide available on the HUD website.

Primary research

Two Phases of Research

The project was unique because research and design were conducted in two phases between February 2022 and June 2023. The first phase was research with people utilizing FHEO services while the second phase focused on the staff and FHEO processes. We used human-centered research and design methods to uncover complaint insights and generate solutions to improve customer experience. This included complainant interviews, concept development based on customer insight, and co-design activities with staff.

Research with People Who Used FHEO Services
The team interviewed 23 HUD customers of diverse backgrounds who filed a complaint in the past two years. The CX team chose the one-on-one interview format to deeply understand each customer’s history with discrimination and their experience with the housing discrimination complaint process. Phases of the complaint process served as an outline for the questions inviting further conversation. After the interviews, the team used findings to map the complaint process from the customers collective point of view.

Key Insights:

Hearing directly from customers uncovered known (and unknown) barriers they frequently face when pursuing a fair and accessible investigation.

1️⃣ Power Imbalance – Underlying power imbalances and unmet customer needs with the complainant often place them at a disadvantage. Many customers don’t have a chance at a fair investigation because of the vulnerable situation they’re in when they contact HUD. They may be living in fear of losing their home or feel threatened by their housing provider (retaliation).

2️⃣ Navigating Legal Processes – After trying every other option, they come to HUD, often in survival mode and desperate for help. Then, they must navigate a legal process they don’t fully understand without legal counsel. This experience can make customers feel powerless and disadvantaged.

3️⃣ Unsupported and Hopeless – Many customers wait out the process, only to find that HUD can’t help their situation. They usually find this out through a formal letter or e-mail, and they often don’t understand why HUD rejected their complaint. When this happens, they leave the process feeling dismissed, hopeless, and lose trust in HUD and the federal government.

Research with Staff
After speaking directly with complainants, it became clear that because many entered the process under unstable living conditions, or are at risk of losing their home, they are likely in a state of trauma, which can prevent them from effectively navigating the process and advocating for themselves.

Based on this key insight, we embarked on research with staff and on a design project to focus on solutions for FHEO to better respond and engage with people experiencing trauma.

Key Insights:

1️⃣ Staff are not formally trained to work with survivors of trauma and are eager to learn: staff need practical guidance

2️⃣ Staff worked on cases that they may not know how to navigate: staff need an expert’s advice

3️⃣ Staff are emotionally impacted by work they do: staff need help with secondary trauma

Complaint CustomerJourneyMap — Research with customers uncovered key insights about their experience filing a discrimination complaint

designing and testing

Supporting Staff with a New Trauma-informed Role

Our team not only conducted research with staff to learn about their needs, but also ideated and defined recommendations for a new role that would provide support and expertise to staff. By informing and supporting staff, they in turn could better support people seeking recourse through the discrimination complaint process.

We developed concepts and prototypes of what a role could do with a position description and probed for feedback using scenarios to determine how staff could best be supported.

The implementation of new trauma-informed approach could support over 400 FHEO staff members across 10 regions and potentially impact thousands of complainants, respondents and witnesses, going through the process. New trauma-informed roles with backgrounds in social work would help equip staff with knowledge and tools to better navigate customer interactions and reduce the emotional burden staff and FHEO complainants experience. ‘The team was able to socialize the projects findings and recommendations to FHEO leadership to justify funding to bring on new trauma-informed resources, which led to discussions of a pilot program.

impact

HUD’s Paradigm Shift

As a result of our work we were able to shift the paradigm and perception about the discrimination complaint process by:

⭐️ Increasing buy-in for evidence-based customer experience improvements: Our recommendations were supported by clear justification from customers and staff. We subsequently generated buy in from leadership needed to make informed decisions prior to the FY25 budget request.

⭐️ Enhancing customer understanding: Initial assumptions about complainant needs were focused on making forms and paperwork easier to fill out for the public. However, customer feedback revealed potential harm triggers from participating in an investigation and interacting with HUD staff. This enabled the organization to think differently about solutions to improve services.

⭐️ Cross-collaboration with federal and state agencies: The design project enabled the customer experience team at HUD to build and cultivate strong relationships in the federal CX community practice and with agencies such as FEMA doing similar work in this innovative space. The team was not only able to share findings and lessons learned with other practitioners, but also exchange knowledge that helped the team further refine the new roles at FHEO.

deliverables

Informing Leadership for Key Decisions

Here are some of the key deliverables generated through our work:

Insight report: Includes underlying systemic barriers and complexity of needs that act as a barrier to participation
Opportunity map: A prioritization map was included in an executive summary and used for scoping conversations for a design project
Budget justification: Budget justification was built into the FY25 budget to include funding for newly established trauma-informed roles
Industry best practices and staff insights: Insight from staff and other federal agencies was captured to inform future trauma-informed solutions
Customer journey map: Includes pain points and moments that matter for people filing a discrimination complaint. The journey map also documented actionable areas of improvement and opportunities for each phase of filing a complaint
Design recommendations report: Detailed recommendations for a trauma-informed approach for FHEO centered around training, advising, and emotional support for staff to inform a future pilot.

Advancing a Trauma-informed Approach: The project resulted in key efforts to launch a pilot program. In GAO’s report, OMB Has Taken Actions to Implement Cross-Agency Priority Goals, our project was highlighted as an “Example of Efforts to Improve Customer Experience through Research and Redesign”