‘The author of my own life’: How Australia’s Head Start Homes uses AI to help people realize their dream of home ownership

The notion of a nonprofit - not a parent - acting as guarantor for a first-time homebuyer was initially met with skepticism.

"People would say, 'This is insane,'" Woodlands recalls, laughing. "My motto was, I'm going to keep doing it until someone tells me it can't be done. I'm not going to listen to 'it's too hard,' because we heard that all the time."

Woodlands eventually got banks on board, thanks to his connections and financial expertise. But it was no small feat.

"There were a lot of regulatory hurdles," he says. "Getting the bank to enter into an agreement with an organization that's just being created, to do a new product offering that had never been done before, it was a completely new way of doing things."

Once the model was in place, Woodlands reached out to community housing providers and tenancy managers to find clients, people like his mother who were in social housing and wanted a home of their own.

"There was excitement about an organization that's being bold and wanting to disrupt the system and say, 'Why can't we do this? Why shouldn't people on lower incomes have the same access to home ownership as more wealthy Australians'?" Woodlands says.

"Our purpose has always been to put people before property, to design pathways where empowerment comes first so buying a home is safe, sustainable and life-changing. By staying true to purpose, it was easy to win hearts and meet people who believed in what we were trying to do."

For people in social housing, Woodlands says, moving to a private rental is often precarious because Australia's private rental market doesn't offer long-term stability. Landlords can terminate leases, often without cause and with little notice, leaving low-income tenants scrambling to find other housing.

"A key motivating point for our clients is they're breaking out of systems that keep them locked in and feeling trapped and hopeless. Home ownership offers a pathway to empowerment, hope and financial independence," he says.

Before long, Head Start Homes had its first client, an Aboriginal single mother who was previously homeless and never imagined owning her own home. Head Start Homes helped her set up a savings plan, and in 2020 she bought a house, giving her three children a permanent home for the first time in their lives.

'A life administrator'

Like many nonprofit organizations, Head Start Homes' employees wear many hats, and they rely on Microsoft 365 Copilot to streamline workflows, improve communications and free up time for working with clients.

"Copilot gives us more time and resources for clients," says Woodlands, who regularly uses the AI assistant to draft emails, summarize documents and write papers and reports. "Without it, we'd be bogged down in admin. It helps us focus on what truly matters - our clients and our communities."

Woodlands recently used Researcher, an AI-powered agent within Microsoft 365 Copilot, to gain a clearer understanding of some major housing reforms, enabling Head Start Homes to be responsive in a rapidly evolving landscape.

"That research would have cost us dearly if we'd gone to an external consultant. As a nonprofit, we simply don't have the budget for that," he says.