ryan.honea
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Florida Homeowner Assistance Fund

Completed

BDO · State of Florida · Data operations lead

Data operations for a statewide federal relief program, managing application-to-payment processing for more than $550M in pandemic-era homeowner assistance.

$550M+federal relief processed
10,000+applications processed
To the pennyfunds reconciled

Florida’s Homeowner Assistance Fund delivered federal relief to homeowners hit by the pandemic: mortgage help for people at real risk of losing their homes. Relief programs at this scale live or die on their data operations: every dollar must move quickly and survive an audit.

The problem

A statewide program moving hundreds of millions in federal funds needs application-to-payment processing that is fast enough to help people in crisis and rigorous enough for federal oversight. Disparate intake sources, eligibility rules, and payment rails all have to reconcile continuously, not quarterly.

The approach

Oversaw the program’s data operations end to end, managing the application-to-payment pipeline: intake data from applicants, eligibility processing, and the reporting that kept the program transparent and audit-ready throughout.

The outcome

  • More than $550M in federal relief assistance processed from application through payment
  • More than 10,000 homeowner applications processed for assistance
  • Full reconciliation of all funds, down to the penny

Lessons Learned

This was an incredible first project to work on when it comes to government relief work. We all know that the government is a slow engine to churn, but seeing all the work that goes into making sure that the right people are receiving relief and how much it helps them was inspiring. The late nights that went into the work always felt important because it could be the difference between a foreclosure and a place to live.

I also learned the value of a strong data architecture. In historical work, other teams handled the architecture and I just worked within it. This was a project that had to move quickly due to the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic’s consequences. As such, our architecture evolved rapidly, and keeping it sturdy and able to handle new requests hardened my abilities in a way that no other project could.