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.
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WCAG 2.1 AA · Section 508 · 24 CFR Part 8 · DOJ ADA Title II

Accessibility: statement & live audit.

HACSC.gov should work for every resident of Santa Cruz County, including residents who use screen readers, residents who navigate with a keyboard, residents who magnify text, residents whose first language is not English, and residents on slower mobile connections. This page is the redesign's accessibility statement, ongoing commitment, and a live side-by-side audit comparison.

Live audit comparison

Side-by-side counts from axe-core 4.11.3, the open-source accessibility scanner from Deque Systems, used industry-wide for WCAG conformance checks. Captured May 19, 2026 against the current site and the ten-page bilingual prototype (5 English + 5 Spanish).

This prototype, 10 pages (5 EN + 5 ES)
0
total axe-core violations
~35 KB avg page weight
Current hacosantacruz.org, 3 audited pages
110
total axe-core violations
~880 KB avg page weight

Reproducibility note: the commands listed in the page source (view source on this page or open /hacsc/accessibility in your editor) run the same scans against either site. The audit script, raw axe JSON, and per-page Lighthouse reports captured during this proposal are in 02-research/raw/ of the submitted proposal package.

Per-page results

Prototype

PageViolationsPage weight
/hacsc/
Home (EN)		 0 ~32 KB
/hacsc/es/
Home (ES, real translation)		 0 ~32 KB
/hacsc/apply
Apply for housing assistance (EN)		 0 ~38 KB
/hacsc/es/apply
Apply for housing assistance (ES)		 0 ~38 KB
/hacsc/section-504
Reasonable accommodation + Sec 504 grievance (EN)		 0 ~36 KB
/hacsc/es/section-504
Reasonable accommodation + Sec 504 grievance (ES)		 0 ~36 KB
/hacsc/landlords
Landlord landing (EN)		 0 ~34 KB
/hacsc/es/landlords
Landlord landing (ES)		 0 ~34 KB
/hacsc/accessibility
This page, live audit scoreboard (EN)		 0 ~35 KB
/hacsc/es/accessibility
This page, live audit scoreboard (ES)		 0 ~35 KB

Current site (hacosantacruz.org)

PageViolationsPage weight
https://hacosantacruz.org/
Homepage		 21 ~1840 KB
https://hacosantacruz.org/program-forms/landlord-forms/
Landlord Forms		 46 ~410 KB
https://hacosantacruz.org/program/housing-choice-voucher-section-8-program/information-for-new-voucher-holders/
New Voucher Holders		 43 ~390 KB

Recurring rule classes on the current site

The 110+ violations across the three audited pages on the current site come down to roughly eight recurring rule classes. Most of them get cleared at the same time, in one or two template fixes during Phase 4 of the proposed engagement.

RuleImpactNodesHelp
image-alt critical 9 Images must have alternative text
link-in-text-block serious 52 Links must be distinguishable from surrounding text without relying on color
link-name serious 21 Links must have discernible text
landmark-complementary-is-top-level moderate 12 Aside landmarks should not be contained in another landmark
heading-order moderate 8 Heading levels should only increase by one
button-name critical 4 Buttons must have discernible text
frame-title serious 2 Frames must have an accessible name
label critical 2 Form elements must have labels

Mobile performance (Lighthouse)

Captured May 19, 2026 with Lighthouse 12, mobile profile, throttled, headless Chrome.

PagePerformanceAccessibilityLCP
hacosantacruz.org/ (current homepage)708011.8 s
hacosantacruz.org/program/housing-choice-voucher-section-8-program/91823.1 s
/hacsc/ (this prototype)100100~ 1 s

Core Web Vitals threshold for "good" Largest Contentful Paint is ≤ 2.5 seconds. The current homepage trails by roughly 9 seconds on mobile. Largest contributors to the slowdown: hero JPEGs served at full resolution with no srcset or modern formats (estimated savings 1.2 MB), Bootstrap 3.3.6 + Font Awesome 4.7.0 loading render-blocking from the head (estimated savings 1.3 s), and a 780 ms server response on the root document.

How HACSC achieves and maintains conformance

The redesign brings HACSC.gov to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, the standard cited under DOJ's April 2024 Title II rule, the federal Section 508 standard, and HUD's Section 504 effective-communication requirements (24 CFR 8.6). HACSC's special-district deadline is April 26, 2028, per DOJ's April 2026 Interim Final Rule, but the substantive obligation under Section 504 is already in force.

Design

  • Color palette evaluated for contrast (WCAG 1.4.3 and 1.4.11) before any design comp is presented
  • Wireframes reviewed for keyboard tab order, heading hierarchy, and visible focus states
  • Spanish typography reviewed separately, Spanish content runs 15–25% longer than English; templates accommodate

Implementation

  • Semantic HTML5 defaults, landmarks, headings, lists, button-vs-link discipline
  • ARIA used only where native semantics fall short, never as a substitute
  • Visible focus indicators meeting WCAG 2.4.7, never removed, sufficient contrast against any background
  • Skip-to-main-content link on every page
  • Proper lang attributes, including lang="es" on Spanish pages so screen readers announce in Spanish

Automated CI

  • axe-core runs in continuous integration; builds fail when a new violation is introduced
  • Pages crawled via JSDOM-based static analysis as a second pass

Manual testing

  • Keyboard-only walkthrough of every template before pre-launch sign-off
  • Screen-reader pass with NVDA and JAWS (Windows), VoiceOver (macOS) on desktop
  • Mobile screen-reader pass with TalkBack (Android) and VoiceOver (iOS)
  • Forms, search, and any modal or dialog get focused individual testing
  • Spanish content tested with Spanish-language screen-reader output

Post-launch

  • Quarterly axe-core re-scan with written report to HACSC, included in the annual hosting + maintenance scope
  • Public accessibility-statement page (this one) with a report-an-issue intake routed to HACSC's Section 504 Coordinator

Report an accessibility issue

If something on HACSC.gov is hard to use, or impossible to use, with your accessibility tools or your device, please tell us. We respond within 5 business days.