Privacy Policy

SPHA Housing Assistant · Effective October 8, 2026

The St. Petersburg Housing Authority (“SPHA”, “we”) operates an automated housing assistant on stpeteha.org. It answers questions about our programs using information published on our own website. This policy explains what the assistant collects, why, who else sees it, and how long we keep it.

What the assistant collects

When you chat

• The messages you type and the answers you receive. These may be stored so staff can see what visitors are asking and improve the answers.
• Technical information — your browser type and an abbreviated, scrambled form of your IP address. We use these to stop automated abuse and to count how many people use the assistant. We do not use them to identify you.

When you ask staff to contact you

If you use “Ask staff to contact me”, we collect the name, email address, phone number, and description of your request that you enter, along with the recent chat messages from that conversation so staff have context. You choose what to put in that form.

When you complete paperwork in the chat

If you choose “Recertification & HOTMA forms”, the assistant asks the questions on SPHA’s Personal Declaration and HOTMA forms: your name, date of birth, the last four digits of your Social Security number, contact details, the people in your household, income, assets, and deductions. You are told this before the first question and can stop at any time. Each section is saved to your SPHA intake case file when you confirm it, under a reference ID you can use to continue later by chat or by phone.

These answers are handled differently from ordinary chat messages. They are not sent to an artificial intelligence provider and are not kept in the chat transcript. The questionnaire has no box for a full Social Security number: if you choose to provide one, a one-time link is texted to your phone and you enter it on a separate secure page, where it is encrypted before it is stored.

What we do not collect

• Outside the paperwork questionnaire described above, we do not ask for, and the assistant is instructed never to request, your Social Security number, date of birth, banking details, or passwords.
• Social Security numbers and payment card numbers are automatically stripped from anything you send before it is stored.
• We do not use advertising trackers, and we do not sell or rent your information to anyone.

Why we collect it

• To answer your question.
• To let SPHA staff follow up when you ask them to.
• To find questions the assistant answers badly, so we can fix them.
• To protect the service from abuse.
• To give SPHA staff the paperwork you chose to complete in the questionnaire.

The assistant does not make decisions about your housing application, your eligibility, or your tenancy; SPHA staff review everything and respond in writing. The assistant cannot see your application or your account. Ordinary chat messages do not become part of your housing file unless a staff member acts on a contact request you submitted. Answers you give in the paperwork questionnaire are different: they are submitted to SPHA as your paperwork.

Who else processes your messages

To produce an answer, your message and relevant excerpts from stpeteha.org are sent to a third-party artificial intelligence provider that SPHA has selected. That provider processes the message to generate a reply and acts as our service provider.

Paperwork questionnaire answers are not sent to that provider. They are stored in the intake case file that Noral AI operates for SPHA on n8n’s cloud service, and the text messages with your reference ID and the secure link are sent through Twilio.

Our website, database, and staff sign-in are hosted by Supabase. Staff members sign in to the administrative area with Google; that sign-in covers SPHA staff only and is not used by members of the public.

We may also disclose information where required by law, in response to a lawful request from a public authority, or as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a public agency, records we hold may be subject to Florida’s public records law.

How long we keep it

• Chat transcripts are kept for a limited period — currently 90 days — and then the message text is deleted. Anonymous counts, such as how many conversations happened on a given day, may be kept longer.
• Contact requests are kept as long as needed to respond to you and to meet our record-keeping obligations as a public agency.
• Paperwork questionnaire answers are part of your SPHA paperwork. They are not deleted on the chat-transcript schedule above; they are kept as long as SPHA is required to keep that paperwork.

Your choices

You are never required to use the assistant. Everything it can tell you is also available by phone, by email, or in person, and you can reach a person at any time:

To ask what we hold about you, to correct it, or to request deletion, contact us using the details above. We will respond as required by applicable law.

Children

The assistant is intended for adults seeking housing services. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

Accessibility and fair housing

SPHA is an Equal Housing Opportunity provider. We provide housing without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, physical or mental handicap, familial status, national origin, or other protected class. If you need this policy or any SPHA service in another format or language, contact us and we will accommodate you.

To file a housing discrimination complaint, write to the HUD Director, Office of Civil Rights, 451 7th Street S.W., Washington, D.C. 20410, or call (202) 708-1112 (voice) or (202) 708-1455 (TTY).

Changes to this policy

If we change what the assistant collects or who processes it, we will update this page and change the effective date above.