About My File

My File is a project of the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) at New America. The platform is designed to help people applying for public services to store, retrieve, and share vital documents in a simple and secure manner. It is an efficient, effective, and accessible provision of public services informed by human-centered research. While the solution accounts for the complexities and realities facing individuals and families seeking access to public programs, it is also a tool to improve access to those services.

The system is open source, and the code repositories and quickstart guide are published to the My File pages on New America’s GitHub.

For many people—particularly those experiencing homelessness or other significant disruptions—maintaining personal documents can be challenging. Frequent moves, estrangement from families, or the loss of one’s home make it difficult to access current, organized files. Lacking appropriate identifying documents makes all processes difficult and time-consuming for residents and government workers and is a primary factor for delays in, and even denials of, services.

The basic functionality of My File is simple and straightforward. Users can securely upload, manage, and store encrypted copies of vital documents such as ID cards, Social Security cards, and utility bills—all documents required to access such public services as temporary or permanent housing—with the ability to view, download, or delete them at any time. When applying for services, users can choose to share documents, while program administrators can sort, download, and update the status of documents and applications.

The system is operational in New York City, where the focus is to better support families in the temporary-to-permanent housing journey. My File NYC is managed by the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity). The NYC Opportunity team partners with agencies to improve the systems of government and make the city’s social service programs more effective, efficient, and responsive. My File NYC is deployed with the Department of Homeless Services for families applying to Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) and is scaling to an additional use case with Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).

The following developments underscore the system’s potential to become an integral part of document management across public services.

• Over 2,100 families completed account creation for My File NYC at PATH.
• Document uploads, shares, and downloads of My File have been consistent through 2024. Families average five documents uploaded and shared.
• PATH staff reported the processing time for family documents by users opting into My File has dropped from roughly 10 minutes to two minutes, offering a solution that is both user friendly and addresses back-end processes.
• Positive feedback from users, both clients and staff, highlights its accessibility, security, and overall usefulness.
• Expansion requests from various city stakeholders reflect a growing recognition of My File NYC’s value, prompting discussions about scaling to serve a broader population.

NYC Opportunity manages the resources crucial to maintaining operations, enhancing features, and supporting future expansion. For more information, see NYC Opportunity’s pilot case study and product page.

By utilizing user-centered approaches, working in partnership with government, and focusing on open-source reuse, scale, and spread, My File demonstrates an alternative to the status quo:

• Open: A generic My File not specific to New York City is published as a “white-labeled” version that other jurisdictions can use, adapt, or modify. This is true to the vision of open source, unlike proprietary vendor software.
• Prioritizes users: Built with the principles of Human-Centered Government, My File empowers users to give permission to access documents for a specific purpose.
• Accessible: Optimized for web browsers (computers and smartphones), not custom bandwidth-intensive apps that require personal phones and additional steps for users.
• Responsive and iterative: My File leveraged a small pilot to test and learn before pursuing larger-scaled deployments with added direct input from users.
• Community layer: Built as a generalized, customizable “community layer” for any government to use across programs and services, rather than a hard-coded, narrowly designed software for a single use case.
• Built not bought: My File was built by a collaborative multi-stakeholder approach rooted in the fact that technology, although crucial, is only one part of a complete solution. The more traditional model for government digital solutions is vendor-driven.