Applying BuildingBlocks to the Housing Programs You Run

Every housing program moves through the same three phases: identify what needs attention, execute the work, and report on the results. Below, we've paired each phase with the BuildingBlocks features that support it, along with a few questions worth exploring with your team.

Identify

Identifying is more than surfacing properties. It also means knowing what's in your toolkit, spotting the gaps in your current setup, and deciding what to focus on next. BuildingBlocks is where all of that comes together.

Features to use:

• Filters and Saved Searches: Layer criteria like violations, owner type, tax status, and buildability to surface the properties that match your program's parameters. Save the search, and it refreshes as the underlying data does.
• Alerts: Set an alert on a single parcel or across a saved search. You'll get an email when a property starts meeting your criteria, or when a field you're watching changes.
• Score Manager: Combine multiple fields into a weighted score to set priorities. Rental tiering, problem-property indices, and vacancy-risk models can all be built on the same parcel-level data.
• Owner Insights overlays: Map ownership types (homeowner, small local landlord, large out-of-town owner, corporate, public) across your jurisdiction so patterns show up at a glance, no filter required.

Worth exploring:

• What needs attention? Which properties in Ward 3 have three or more open code violations, out-of-town owners, and tax delinquency?
• What's in your toolkit? Which BuildingBlocks features has your team tried once and never returned to? What other resources can your program draw on, such as funding, volunteers, or nonprofit partners?
• Where are the gaps? Where do your data and your department have blind spots? What questions can't you answer yet?
• What's next? Given what BuildingBlocks is surfacing, where should your team focus this quarter, this year, or this grant period?

Execute

Execution is also coordination: who is watching what, who owns which property this week, where the notes live, and how the record stays current as things change. BuildingBlocks gives your team the tools to coordinate inside the platform, and Slate takes over when a process needs formal structure, like intake, fees, deadlines, renewals, and hearings.

Features to use:

• Follow and Alerts: Any team member can follow a parcel or a saved search and get alerts when the record changes. Code enforcement follows code activity, housing follows rentals, and nobody needs a shared inbox.
• Notes and documents on the parcel: Every parcel profile has a notes field and a documents area. Attach a scanned letter, upload a site-visit photo, or note who to contact, so the context stays on the record for the next person.
• Property Groups and shared Saved Searches: A Property Group is a hand-picked list of parcels for a specific project. A shared Saved Search is a live query the whole team can open. Both keep everyone working from the same queue.
• Saved Areas: Draw boundaries for enforcement zones, target neighborhoods, or project areas that don't exist in other systems. Any filter or follow can be limited to a saved area.
• Jump straight to Slate: When the work needs to become a repeatable workflow, a toggle on any parcel profile opens the same parcel in Slate. Same record, no copy-and-paste.

Worth exploring:

• Who on your team is already following the parcels you care about, and would a shared saved search make that easier for everyone?
• If a colleague needed last week's site-visit notes tomorrow, where would they find them?
• Could you share a saved search with code enforcement so both teams work from the same view?
• Is one of your monthly processes ready to become a Slate workflow?

Report

BuildingBlocks keeps one shared record and lets you publish the pieces each audience needs, whether that's a council committee, a resident, or a federal funder.

Features to use:

• Dashboards: Save a configured view (filters, overlays, and layout) and reopen it in one click. Share it with teammates so everyone sees the same picture.
• Exports and custom reports: Export any saved search or table view to CSV, or hand it to an analyst to build a council presentation.
• Public-facing view: An optional public site showing selected BuildingBlocks data. Agencies using it typically publish registration status, code history, and property details, while owner contact information stays private. Peers using it have reported fewer one-off records requests.
• Sharing across departments: Share saved searches, saved areas, and dashboards with named colleagues. New staff can open a shared queue and see exactly what the team is working on.

Worth exploring:

• Can you show council the same live map you use every day, without rebuilding it as a slide?
• Can you answer "How many vacant properties are in Ward 3?" in under a minute, from any device?
• Can residents check a property's registration status without calling your office?
• Do your Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) report and your rental registry report come from the same underlying records?

In Practice: Rental Compliance

Identify. A housing team builds a saved search that layers Owner Insights ownership types against open code violations and tax status. The result is a working list of the properties most in need of rental oversight.

Execute. The team shares the saved search with code enforcement so both work from one queue, sets alerts for ownership changes and new violations, and follows the specific properties they're targeting. When a property is ready to register, they jump straight into a Slate registration workflow on the same parcel.

Report. A council dashboard shows registered rentals versus suspected unregistered rentals by district. The optional public-facing view lets residents check a property's registration status themselves, and the CDBG or state housing report is exported from the same records the team works from every day.

Want a refresher on any of these features? Reach out to our team and we'll walk you through it.