D.C. Housing Authority Offers Woebot to Employees and Residents

WASHINGTON & SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) today announced it has partnered with Woebot Health to offer Woebot, a smartphone-based general wellness program for stress and low mood, to all of DCHA’s 800 employees and to a pilot group of 450 residents living in the authority’s affordable housing communities.

“Our community is facing many challenges this year, and we wanted to give them a free, private and supportive space to help them manage anxiety and stress,” said DCHA Executive Director Tyrone Garrett. “Woebot’s natural conversational style, accessibility and proven effectiveness make it an ideal tool to help our employees and customers understand and manage their thoughts and feelings.”

DCHA employees include administrative, facilities management and security personnel who help provide quality affordable housing to extremely low- through moderate-income households, foster sustainable communities, and cultivate opportunities for residents to improve their lives. The pilot will be offered to residents of the Woodland Terrace and Greenleaf family communities and is expected to be rolled out to a broader group of residents in the future.

Woebot Health CEO Michael Evers said that D.C., like many metropolitan areas, has been dealing with fallout from the coronavirus, both in terms of infections and the associated unemployment, and the need for easily-accessible emotional support is ever more urgent. “We’re impressed with DCHA’s progressive approach to support its community and honored to collaborate to deliver a proven solution to people, when and where they need it.”

Woebot, the first mental health conversational agent to be tested in a randomized control trial, is designed to be reflective and responsive by helping people to identify how they are feeling, and to provide personalized tools drawn from evidence-based psychotherapy approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), to help them achieve better outcomes.

About The District of Columbia Housing Authority

The District of Columbia Housing Authority is an independent government agency whose mission is to provide quality affordable housing to extremely low- through moderate-income households, foster sustainable communities, and cultivate opportunities for residents to improve their lives. One of the District’s largest landlords, DCHA provides subsidized housing to approximately 50,000 residents.

About Woebot Health

Woebot Health was founded in 2017 to modernize psychotherapy for the way we live today. The company is pioneering a new class of digital therapeutics, combining the best psychotherapeutic tools, principles of therapeutic alliance, and advances in AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to make therapy more scalable and accessible, and to improve outcomes in mental health. Headquartered in San Francisco, Woebot Health is funded in part by venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Jazz Venture Partners, L.P., with participation from Andrew Ng’s AI Fund. For more information, please visit Woebot Health or follow Woebot on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Contacts

Media inquiries
Jose C. Sousa, D.C. Housing Authority, (202) 460-6452 or jsousa@dchousing.org

Margot Carlson Delogne, Woebot Health, (781) 492-1039 or margot@woebothealth.com