Prototype. A click-through redesign concept for the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Cruz, prepared by Stoa Works LLC for HACSC-2026-RFP-03. Not the live HACSC site.
Language assistance is available at no cost. Español 中文 Tiếng Việt Tagalog Mixteco (oral) All languages →

An audience-first redesign of hacosantacruz.org

Affordable housing for Santa Cruz County, with compassion and kindness.

HACSC administers federal rental assistance for 5,800+ families and operates affordable housing across Santa Cruz County, plus Hollister and San Juan Bautista. This prototype reorganizes the public site around what residents and landlords actually came to do, and brings true Spanish parity to the same pages that have it in English.

Why are you here?

Four audience flows replace the current department-oriented menu. Tap one to see how the redesign reorganizes around what you came to do.

I want to apply

Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8), Project-Based Vouchers, FUP for foster youth, VASH for veterans, and special programs. Eligibility, waitlist status, and how to start.

I'm a current tenant

Recertify, report income changes, request a transfer, find your case manager, and reach the resident portal.

I'm a landlord

Receive HAP payments, schedule a unit inspection, list a unit, and complete W-9 + EFT setup. AB 282 source-of-income protections explained.

I need an accommodation

Disability accommodations, reasonable accommodation requests, and the formal Section 504 grievance procedure required under federal law.

What's happening right now

The information residents need most this quarter, surfaced on the home page instead of buried in a news archive.

Emergency Housing Voucher cliff: December 2026

250 EHV households face funding loss December 2026. HACSC is working to transition these families to regular Housing Choice Vouchers. If you hold an EHV today, your case manager will reach you directly, and a Q&A line and Spanish-language information session are scheduled.

What to expect →

Proposed HUD citizenship rule

HACSC has formally opposed the proposed federal rule that would require all household members to be U.S. citizens or legal residents. Nothing has changed yet, your voucher is unaffected today. We will post any updates here and notify case managers in writing if the rule advances.

Pacific Station North leasing in 2026

128 affordable units in downtown Santa Cruz with Eden Housing, opening to residents in 2026, including 47 units drawn from the HACSC waitlist and 11 PBV units with EHV preference. Natural Bridges Apartments (Westside, 20 units) opened May 2025, HACSC's first new construction in three decades.

What's new from HUD

Pulled live from www.hud.gov/rss.xml on each page load, cached for six hours, with a baked-in fallback if HUD's feed is down. Notices most relevant to HACSC programs are surfaced first.

Loading from HUD…

First-load fetch in progress.

What changed in this redesign

  • Audience-first home page. Four roles (apply, current tenant, landlord, accommodations) replace a department-oriented menu of 129 nav items.
  • Real human-reviewed Spanish at /hacsc/es/, not the on-the-fly Transposh machine-translation widget that today sits on top of every page.
  • A dedicated Section 504 reasonable-accommodation page with the grievance procedure required under 24 CFR 8.53, plus an accessible web form that drafts the HUD-shape PDF for the audit binder. Today's 060104-Req-for-RA-3.pdf is a 2017 scanned PDF.
  • The two broken navigation links (both labeled "How to Figure Out What You Pay in Rent, Section 8 Only", both pointing to http://wp-content/...) are fixed.
  • Native semantic HTML5, <main>, <header>, <footer>, skip-to-content, keyboard navigable.
  • Language-services banner at the top of every page in five languages, HUD LEP guidance, never previously surfaced.
  • Equal Housing Opportunity logo + Fair Housing posting in the footer of every page, currently missing from the live site.

See the live accessibility audit →

Live accessibility scoreboard

The same axe-core tool that audits accessibility on the live site, run against this prototype right now:

0 violations across all 10 prototype pages

For comparison, the live hacosantacruz.org homepage records 21 axe-core violations on the same scan, the landlord page 46, the new-voucher-holder page 43.

Run the audit yourself →

Language assistance: at no cost to you

You have a right to free language assistance from HACSC. This is not optional and it is not a service we charge for. If you read or speak a language other than English and would like help with any form, letter, or call from HACSC, you have a right to:

  • Have a HACSC document read aloud to you in your preferred language, by phone
  • Have a HACSC letter or notice translated and provided in writing
  • Bring an interpreter to a HACSC meeting (we provide one at no cost if you tell us 72 hours in advance, call (831) 454-5955 ext. 280)
  • Use the resident portal in Spanish

HACSC supports English, Spanish, and Mixteco as a matter of policy in our Language Access Plan. Other languages, including Vietnamese, Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese, are available on request through certified interpreter services.

HUD's 2007 LEP Final Guidance is the federal authority that establishes this right. The four-factor analysis HACSC follows is part of HACSC's Language Access Plan.

Fair Housing

HACSC complies with the Fair Housing Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and California's AB 282 source-of-income protections. You cannot be denied housing because you hold a voucher; you cannot be denied housing because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.

If you believe you have experienced housing discrimination, you can file a complaint with HUD, with the California Civil Rights Department, or with HACSC. The three paths are independent, you can use any of them.