Bridge Housing Solutions
How a UK housing company turned a manual lettings process into a platform that places homeless people into permanent homes
Bridge Housing Solutions was managing a complex lettings operation across disconnected systems — with no single platform serving their internal teams, local authority partners, and homeless applicants at once. Offshorly built one from scratch. Delivered ahead of time and under budget, OneBridge now supports every stage of the journey from applicant registration to signed tenancy agreement.
Bridge Housing Solutions is focused on placing homeless individuals and families into permanent accommodation.
Working across multiple London boroughs, the company operates at the intersection of local authority housing teams, private housing providers, and people in urgent need of a home. At the time of engagement the team had 11–50 employees managing a complex, high-stakes lettings operation.
A complex operation running on disconnected systems
The business was running its lettings operation across disconnected systems. Case officers at local authorities, internal lettings teams, and housing providers were each working from different touchpoints with no single source of truth. Applicants had no visibility into where they stood. Internal teams were manually tracking nominations, incentive calculations, document checks, and tenancy progressions — work that was time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale.
The company needed a platform that could serve three distinct user groups at once: internal operations staff across five teams, local authority case officers verifying applicants, and homeless individuals tracking their own housing journey. Getting all three right in a single system, without overcomplicating any one of them, was the core challenge.
They also needed a partner who would do more than execute a brief. As the senior leader who commissioned the work put it, they wanted someone willing to challenge their assumptions and recommend different options — not just build what they asked for.
One platform. Three user types. Built from scratch.
Offshorly designed and built OneBridge — a purpose-built case management and lettings platform — from the ground up, replacing the company’s existing CRM with a system built specifically for the way their operation works.
The platform serves three user types through a single system:
Internal Teams
Internal teams manage the full lettings pipeline — from matching applicants to available properties, through document checks, nominations to housing associations, viewings, sign-ups, and tenancy completion.
Local Authorities
Local authority case officers log in to verify applicants and track case status.
Applicants
Applicants receive property offers, accept or decline, and can view their own profile and documents.
Offshorly also handled UI/UX design and prototyping within the same team — no handoff to a separate design agency, no loss of context between design and build. The engagement ran for approximately 11 months with a team of 2–5 people.
What was built
Lettings Pipeline Management
Internal teams manage the full journey from matching applicants to available properties through to tenancy completion. A staged pipeline with automated alerts surfaces properties sitting too long without action.
Nomination Workflow
A structured nomination process with automated email generation to housing associations, replacing manual outreach and creating a consistent, trackable record of nominations.
Local Authority Case Officer Access
Case officers log in to verify applicants and track case status directly, removing the need for back-and-forth communication with internal teams.
Automated Incentive Calculations
Incentives are calculated automatically based on local authority and property location, removing the need for manual calculation and reducing the risk of errors.
Document Management
Centralised document handling across all three user types. All documents accessible from one place with appropriate access per user type.
Applicant Self-Service
Applicants receive property offers, accept or decline, and can view their own profile and documents — giving them visibility into where they stand for the first time.
Technology Stack
Frontend
Backend
Hosting
UI/UX Design
Disciplines Delivered
Delivered ahead of time. Under budget. Rated 5.0 stars.
Clutch rating across all categories
The platform was delivered ahead of time and under budget. Bridge Housing Solutions rated Offshorly 5.0 across all categories on Clutch: quality, schedule, cost, and willingness to refer.
What impressed them most, beyond the delivery itself, was the approach. Offshorly challenged assumptions, recommended alternatives, and brought UI/UX, prototyping, and development under one roof. The result was a platform that matched what the business actually needed — not just what was originally specified.
The Signal
A lettings operation that ran on disconnected systems now runs on a single platform built around how the work actually gets done — serving internal teams, local authority partners, and homeless applicants from one place.
“They understood what we were trying to achieve. They were happy to challenge our assumptions and recommend different options. Very impressive level of dev and project management. UI/UX, prototyping and design all within the same company. As a business and also as individuals they shared the same values about what we were trying to achieve. Really felt they were making that extra effort. Thoroughly nice, fun, warm people who were a joy to work with.”
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