City of Greenville, SC Issues Website RFP
The objective of this RFP is to establish a long-term relationship with a vendor capable of supporting TGHA’s current and future needs and committed to the constant evolution of the proposed solution and hosting services. TGHA’s new website should promote the dissemination of information, both internally and externally, and increase public awareness and communication. The new website should strengthen the relationship between TGHA and clients/businesses by meeting the evolving expectations of the public for secure and reliable online services. TGHA Administration’s goal is to develop a website that promotes TGHA with a welcoming, sophisticated, user-friendly and professional feel and to provide an easy way for staff to share information via the web. The new website should be visually attractive, interesting, and provide useful, relevant, and current information with the ability to conduct business online for convenience and efficiency. TGHA Administration anticipates frequent updates to draw clients and other visitors to the website. The site must be accessible and functional using all of the common web browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices being used today, support a high degree of “uptime” and be easy to maintain.
Background:
The Housing Authority of the City of Greenville, South Carolina (hereinafter, “TGHA”) is a public entity that was formed in 1938 to provide federally subsidized and housing assistance to low-income families. TGHA is headed by an Executive Director and governed by a seven-person board of commissioners and is subject to the requirements of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations (hereinaffter, “CFR”) and TGHA’s pocurement policy.
TGHA has an essential mission to provide housing assistance for people with low and moderate incomes. As a truly great community, Greenville, South Carolina, Respondents affordable housing for people across the income spectrum. TGHA is the catalyst for affordable housing in the Greenville area.
Since 1938, TGHA has provided housing assistance in Greenville, utilizing traditional programs: Public Housing and HCV (Housing Choice Vouchers), previously Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, funded by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In recent years, TGHA has updated its housing portfolio with modern mixed-income developments and continues to search for ways to expand affordable housing throughout the City and County.
TGHA is now a real estate development entity with a social mission of preserving and creating communities of opportunity. As our community continues to grow and change, TGHA continues to develop new strategies to proactively meet the challenges of Building Communities of Opportunity for the residents of Greenville, South Carolina.
In recent years, TGHA has redeveloped its largest public housing communities under the Federal HOPE VI program using multiple mixed-finance methods, including Low Income Housing Tax Credits, to create new mixed-income communities.
Today, TGHA owns and/or manages a real estate portfolio of 1,117 affordable units, to include; three Rental Assistance Demonstration Developments consisting of 161 units, five Mixed Finance/LIHTC communities consisting of a total of 485 units; and five Tax Credit only communities consisting of 471 units. The Mixed Finance communities include 189 Rental Assistance Demonstration units, 108 Project Based Section 8 assisted units, and 175 Tax Credit units. In addition to these multi-family rental communities, TGHA administers 2,996 tenant-based vouchers; a homeownership program; and the HUD-VASH (Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) rental assistance program for homeless veterans. TGHA also administers a multitude of resident support and service programs under various HUD and non-HUD grants.
Scope of Work:
TGHA is seeking a prime vendor that will take full responsibility for all aspects of TGHA’s website, intranet, CMS, and related hosting. The scope of services should include all software, hardware, and services required to support the implementation, maintenance, and ongoing hosting.
At a minimum, the vendor’s services should include the following:
· Design and configuration
· Implementation consulting
· Content migration/conversion
· Documentation
· Project management
· Reporting
· Hosting
· Ongoing maintenance and operations support
The objective of this RFP is to establish a long-term relationship with a vendor capable of supporting TGHA’s current and future needs and committed to the constant evolution of the proposed solution and hosting services. TGHA’s new website should promote the dissemination of information, both internally and externally, and increase public awareness and communication. The new website should strengthen the relationship between TGHA and clients/businesses by meeting the evolving expectations of the public for secure and reliable online services. TGHA Administration’s goal is to develop a website that promotes TGHA with a welcoming, sophisticated, user-friendly and professional feel and to provide an easy way for staff to share information via the web. The new website should be visually attractive, interesting, and provide useful, relevant, and current information with the ability to conduct business online for convenience and efficiency. TGHA Administration anticipates frequent updates to draw clients and other visitors to the website. The site must be accessible and functional using all of the common web browsers, operating systems, and mobile devices being used today, support a high degree of “uptime” and be easy to maintain. The new website should also support the use of older/slower devices so that web pages/graphics are rendered in only one or two seconds. During implementation, TGHA Administration will be responsible for coordinating TGHA’s needs and content and assisting with implementation of the new website.
TGHA Administration’s goals of implementing a new website include:
· Improving the user experience when interacting with the website
· Improving the website’s information architecture to provide easier navigation and search capabilities
· Providing a new look and feel that reflects current technology and TGHA’s diverse make up and vision
· Improving and expanding on-line services and self-help
· Implementing a consistent look and feel across all pages on the website and solidifying style rules to ensure consistent look is maintained regardless of the device and/or browser used to access the website
· Implementing quick links feature to ensure it is available on all pages
· Addressing all current and future ADA accessibility guidelines
· Enabling linking to other websites for special needs
· Allowing for a consistent look while still providing flexibility to support programs
· Ensuring the host site provides secure and consistent website availability, with ample warning of upgrades and scheduled outages
New System Requirements
· Ability to meet and confirm to all ADA, Section 504, and Executive Order 13166 accessibility standards
· Provide uniformity of design that is visually attractive, intuitive, and easy to use
· Provide all features and functionality that exist on current website (Vendors are strongly encouraged to review carefully TGHA’s existing web presence)
· Robust search capability (e.g., Google or similar look and feel and functionality preferred)
· Consistent dropdown menus on all pages, with the ability to change the menus as needed
· Printer-friendly page capability with print button on every page
· Providing broken links checker to detect dead hyperlinks
· Capable of providing automated notifications when visitors complete forms or other activities (e.g. job interest, contact us, etc.)
· Capable of supporting all major operating systems (i.e. Windows, Apple, iPhone, Android, etc.) and current versions of commonly used browsers (e.g. IE, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome)
· Providing seamless access to the website from all major mobile devices (i.e. iPhones, iPads, Android phones, tablets, etc.). Pages should render clearly so they are easy to view and navigate on smaller screens
· Ability to link to other TGHA pages and potentially systems, external webpages, and outsourced e-commerce servers from any page within the new website
· Provide measures that prevent security breaches and access to confidential data collected and stored, block the IP address of the user from website access after a set amount of failed attempts, and block user account. In addition, provide immediate notification of any known or suspected breach and follow on investigation to assess breach and implement changes to remove risk.
· Support “breadcrumb” type navigation
· Provide secure website that meets emerging industry standard guidelines on privacy and accessibility
· Provide warranty on all services for 1-year following implementation
Web Hosting Performance Criteria
· Provide hosted website in secure, state-of-the-art data center. Specify where and any hazards (e.g., earthquake faults, flood zones) and efforts to mitigate
· Provide hosted website on high availability hardware (i.e. virtualization)
· Provide adequate bandwidth with no charge for usage or overages
· Technical support for system outages responds to priority service calls 24 x 7 with 4 hours guaranteed response time
· Ensure full system backups and provide recovery services to minimize impact to TGHA.
Due Date:
March 30, 2019.
Address:
Housing Authority of the City of Greenville, SC
122 Edinburgh Court
Greenville, South Carolina 29607
HUNTER PR and Shift Communications have relevant experience.
