Shifting Red Deer Housing to a Customer-Focused Organization
Moving Beyond Being Simply a Landlord
Red Deer Housing Authority (RDHA) provides affordable housing options in a small municipality in Alberta, Canada. Like so many similar organizations, RDHA is limited by a strict regulatory structure, legacy and aging infrastructure, and a complex mandate with limited funding. At the same time, RDHA has a passionate and talented team of frontline staff who care about creating positive impacts, and a board and leadership team committed to empowering them.
In 2021, J5 Design was hired to assess the customer experience that RDHA was delivering and introduce staff to innovative and design-led approaches that would help them stay adaptive to change.
INDUSTRY
Non-Profit
CLIENT
Red Deer Housing Authority
WHY IT MATTERS
Access to affordable housing is about more than buildings, it’s about belonging, stability, and dignity. This project helped RDHA shift from simply managing housing to reimagining what it means to serve people well. By applying a human-centered and co-design-led approach, J5 Design created space for staff, leadership, and tenants to work together in shaping services that reflect empathy, trust, and long-term impact in their community.
PROCESS HIGHLIGHTS
The project prioritized learning-by-doing, engaging the client team and customers to co-create solutions together.
Over 12-weeks, participants combined self-directed learning with hands-on research, workshops, and fieldwork.
Through collaborative synthesis sessions, participants identified key themes, pain points, and opportunities to improve the tenant experience.
Insights were distilled into a service design blueprint and culture playbook grounded in real stories, images, and actionable recommendations that the board and staff could immediately act upon.
Impact
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User Level
Tenants felt heard and valued through direct engagement.
Early improvements in service delivery led to stronger relationships and communication between RDHA staff and tenants.
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Employee Level
Frontline and administrative staff gained practical design and problem-solving skills through immersive training and coaching.
Cross-department collaboration grew, breaking silos between finance, operations, and maintenance teams.
Staff reported a renewed sense of purpose and confidence in shaping how services evolve.
Process created an internal culture of learning, experimentation, and empathy-driven decision-making.
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Organizational Level
RDHA hired a new client experience manager to carry forward service improvements identified through the design process.
The leadership team now integrates human-centred design principles into governance, planning, and operational decisions.
RDHA has established a repeatable framework and shared language for understanding and improving client experiences, building long-term capacity for innovation.
