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Automated Housing Referral Network
www.ahrn.com

"The R&B Communications team has been instrumental in system design, development, hosting and maintenance of the AHRN.com system. Being very responsive, we have enjoyed working with R&B Communications and look forward to working together in the future."
Paul Giese, Runzheimer International

In 2004, in partnership with Runzheimer International, R&B Communications team architected and helped launch the Automated Housing Referral Network (AHRN.com) for the Department of Defense (DoD). Today, we remain the technical partner for development, hosting and system support for this high traffic, high availability website.

Background

Prior to the development of AHRN.com, every branch of the military had a separate housing information system that stored community housing information. At many installations, no system was being used. Historically, the landlords in the local installation area who wanted to rent to the military would either call or fax in their information to the local housing office(s). The housing office would either put the information in a binder or in their proprietary system that was only accessible to them or military personnel on-base. In high density areas, there were multiple housing offices duplicating this same process with the same landlords.

The SOP required service members to wait until they arrived at their new duty station, show up to the housing office and either peruse the binders or receive a list of available housing options - many of which were no longer available. This business model was frustrating to all parties involved, wasting precious time, government dollars and increasing stress in the move process for the service member and their family. Many service members ended up moving into temporary lodging for extended periods of time increasing their out of pocket expense. All of these factors lead to an increased dissatisfaction with the move process for the service member and their family.

Solution

We developed an easy to use website that was not .MIL restricted (.COM), that was free to use, that allowed landlords to input and manage their available rental listings and photos. This, in turn, allowed service members the ability to search for fresh, available, homes that matched their preferences far in advance of their move date, ensuring that they would move directly into permanent housing. The system automatically expires the listings to keep the information fresh while the local housing office personnel oversee the data to enforce data integrity and maintain high touch service with inbound military personnel.

In 2009, AHRN.com was completely deployed to every U.S. installation and was beta launched in Europe for the Air Force. Next year, AHRN.com will continue to expand to additional overseas installations. It currently houses hundreds of thousands of listings, photos and users and has visitors adding, managing and searching for homes every hour of the day from all over the world.

Outcomes

There are 1.5 million active duty military members and on average, they move every two-three years. One-third of the total military moves every year.

Housing offices decreased man hours associated with data entry, phone calls, emails and customer service saving the government $1.7 million in 2009. They were able to offer more personalized services such as home/area tours, home inspections and content management for their local area housing data.

Duplication in system development across all military branches was consolidated into one housing referral system vs. the four that had been maintained previously.

By making the move process easier and faster, AHRN.com increases move morale and gets military back to work and mission readiness faster.

“A great site, with notable improvements over even the past year - other DoD and federal sites would benefit from "lessons learned" from this site.”
Military Member

“This was awesome. I will be moving into a Condo on Cheim this Monday! The best deal I've seen in a while and I love how ahrn lays all the properties out when you print them so you can mark your favorites and cross off the ones you don't like just by reading. This is 10 times better than rent.com or mynewplace.com! Plus no excessive emails.”
Military Member

“Wanted to show my appreciation for your service to military family. We moved all over the world and you made our rental process thousand % easier and at no cost. Thank you so much.”
Military Member

“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you,,,, AHRN!!! with your help, i was able to Lease my home!!! Thank you soooo much; this really takes a big burden off my "To Do" list before i PCS to my next assignment. Thanks again for all your help!!! I love this service!!!”
Military Member Property Manager

“Would like to say "Thank you" for this wonderful web site. I find it very easy and simple to use, and it is our main tool for keeping our homes rented at all times. We get huge responses when our properties are available to rent, our only regret is that we never have enough properties for all the people who want to rent them.
Again, a big thank you and keep up the tremendous service you provide with this web site.”
Property Manager

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