adesso is responsible for the design and implementation of the new “Soziales Wohnen Online” (SOWON) platform. In addition, the company has been commissioned by Bavarian state capital Munich to further develop and perform maintenance on the portal for five years as part of application management activities. The entire order volume amounts to approximately EUR 1 million.
With the new housing platform, the city aims to further enhance its service quality when it comes to arranging social housing as well as accommodation for city employees. Up to now, a city service employee has been responsible for providing people looking for a flat with a preselected list of options, as they are not granted access to the entire range of potential housing arrangements that they are eligible for. If an applicant turns down the flats offered to him or her, or if no rental agreement is signed, the service employee then has to draw up a new list of potential housing options. This is a very time-consuming process, especially for the individual persons who qualify for social housing.
The state capital therefore decided to develop and provide a new web-based solution that grants people who are entitled to such accommodations direct access to the city’s range of housing options.
Rudolf Stummvoll, Head of the Office for Housing and Migration in the Department of Social Services: “With the new online housing platform, we not only want to optimise our internal processes, but also to underscore our citizen-focused efforts in particular. SOWON provides people looking for a flat with the opportunity to actively search the entire range of housing options and make a suitable choice on their own. As a result, the solution directly benefits those who qualify for social housing.”
The IT service provider adesso was commissioned to develop and implement the solution. adesso’s wealth of experience in carrying out similar, highly complex projects ? particularly in the public administration sector ? was a key factor in the decision.
Uwe Sander from adesso: “We are thrilled to have received this extremely interesting order from the Bavarian state capital, Munich. The project’s main technical challenge has been transforming the procedural steps ? by and large performed manually until now ? in the electronic housing application and allocation process. What’s more, the project calls for the integration of a number of interface applications, such as the city’s internal housing management set-up or the systems of the housing associations. But it is also important to us in this project that we contribute to enhancing the service quality of the city of Munich’s range of services.”
The city of Munich surpassed the 1.5-million-inhabitant mark for the first time in May 2015. The procurement of affordable housing has therefore become one of the city’s most important tasks. The Office for Housing and Migration is responsible for allocating state-subsidised accommodation. At present, the Bavarian state capital has a portfolio of some 77,000 flats that can be awarded to people who qualify. This portfolio includes approximately 44,000 flats designated as social housing.