Toronto Community Housing lays a new foundation for its residents

IT executive Luisa Andrews bridges the gap between IT and business to serve tenant needs

Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) is the largest social housing provider in Canada and the second largest in North America. Wholly owned by the City of Toronto, the nonprofit corporation owns and manages approximately 60,000 rental housing units in more than 2,100 buildings across Toronto. TCHC’s mandate is to provide clean, safe, and affordable homes to low- and moderate-income households, including seniors, families, recent immigrants to Canada, and people with special needs.

It is said that the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Every day, dedicated staff like Luisa Andrews bring their skills, experience, and passion to serve Toronto residents in need of affordable housing. Andrews is Vice President of Information Technology Services at TCHC, and she brings more than two decades of experience in developing and delivering business solutions through information technology. Despite many rewarding years in the private sector, Andrews has found true satisfaction in TCHC’s nonprofit setting. “My heart is in the not-for-profit sector – I believe that I bring the most value to an organization that is driven by quality service rather than profit. There is passion in not-for-profit organizations, and employees are here because they want to be here. The value of the services that we deliver has a huge impact on our tenants, which is a great feeling.”

When challenge and change become the new normal

In the last few years, Andrews and her team have been facing enormous demands due to internal and external challenges, ranging from a new organizational structure and an ERP implementation to the impact of COVID-19 and the need to be vigilant as cybersecurity breaches in other organizations make the news. In addition, many legacy applications and systems have left TCHC with steep technical debt that has necessitated upgrades to even the most basic applications. With so much on their plates, Andrews and her colleagues have turned to Info-Tech Research Group’s best-practices tools, templates, and advisory services for additional expertise and support in developing effective IT strategies. “We don’t have all the experience. We don’t have all the knowledge. This is why we rely on Info-Tech,” explained Andrews.

When Andrews first stepped into her role as head of IT at TCHC, she wanted to understand how well the department was performing in the eyes of the business. She used Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic program to survey business stakeholders: “The CIO Business Vision survey results were clear and identified what we needed to focus on. One thing I love about the survey feedback is that it not only tells us how we’re performing in different areas but also tells us which areas actually matter to the business. So we won’t necessarily invest our time in initiatives that are not a priority for the business.” Andrews added, “We also put in place a continuous improvement team – I believe in measuring what we’re doing to be able to track progress.”

In recognition of the strong stakeholder satisfaction scores from the organization’s CIO Business Vision survey and the initiatives put in place to further improve these scores, Andrews was awarded an Info-Tech 2021 CIO Award in the Growth Leader category.

“The CIO Business Vision survey results were clear and identified what we needed to focus on. One thing I love about the survey feedback is that it not only tells us how we’re performing in different areas but it also tells us which areas actually matter to the business. So we won’t necessarily invest our time in initiatives that are not a priority for the business.”

– Luisa Andrews, VP of IT Services, Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Tackling IT initiatives quickly and effectively with expert support

To accelerate their time to value on their many IT initiatives, Andrews and her team often call Info-Tech analysts for their insight and have participated in many Info-Tech engagements on topics including data governance, aligning IT with business goals, and determining requirements for a new tenant engagement system. Andrews explained, “We used an Info-Tech workshop to establish the goals, processes, and requirements for a tenant engagement system. We brought IT and business together to talk about what we wanted to accomplish. From there, we will be able to determine the right technology to support tenant engagement.”

The Info-Tech workshops have inspired Andrews and her team to hold their own workshops using the same approach: “We use a lot of the resources and templates to drive our own workshops. The Info-Tech model of getting the team together and focused for five days of intensive training is really effective in moving a project to the next stage.”

As TCHC continues to tackle technical debt related to legacy systems, the team has leaned on Info-Tech for support with the RFPs and software contracts required for new applications and technology. In-depth contract reviews by Info-Tech analysts have helped the team learn negotiation strategies. Andrews noted, “Info-Tech contract review services resulted in recommendations that we hadn’t even considered. And now we can become better at reviewing contracts for ourselves in the future.”

“We used an Info-Tech workshop to establish the goals, processes, and requirements for a tenant engagement system. We brought IT and business together to talk about what we wanted to accomplish. From there, we were able to determine the right technology to support tenant engagement.”

– Luisa Andrews, VP of IT Services, Toronto Community Housing Corporation

Aligning IT with business to achieve organizational goals

Contemplating the challenges her department faces, Andrews believes that the path to success lies in the evolution of IT’s role from a tactical one to that of a strategic business partner. Before moving to formal IT roles, Andrews began her career in operations – experiences that inform her relationship with the business. She explained, “I’m very familiar with many areas of the business operations, which helps me support the organization and any technology decisions. I would certainly recommend to those entering the field to embrace an operational background as part of their career because it really does help. You can have much more robust conversations with your organization.”

Andrews notes Info-Tech’s support throughout her department’s evolution to strategic partner. “Business operations actually do view us now as partners. Over the last 18 months, in our interactions with many areas of the business, we have employed strategies that we talked about with Info-Tech. I’m happy that my team and I are now involved in corporate decision making on strategic priorities and how technology can enable them.”

Understanding how the business runs and being able to ask intelligent questions helps Andrews and her team fulfill their commitment to providing value to the business, which ultimately serves their community housing residents. Andrews reported, “We have learned to communicate with the business that we want to be able to deliver a better solution, and they’re embracing those conversations with us.”

“Over the last 18 months, in our interactions with many areas of the business, we have employed strategies that we talked about with Info-Tech. I’m happy that my team and I are now involved in corporate decision making on strategic priorities and how technology can enable them.”

– Luisa Andrews, VP of IT Services, Toronto Community Housing Corporation