Who Carries the Cost of Digital Transformation?

When digital systems go live, the cost doesn’t disappear; it shifts. A housing application that once required paper forms now requires an email address, scanned documents, stable internet, password management, and basic troubleshooting skills. If an applicant doesn’t have those things, the burden doesn’t fall back on the agency that built the platform; it falls on frontline social service workers. Case managers become tech support, navigators become digital literacy instructors, and program staff spend precious appointment time resetting passwords and explaining upload buttons. This labor is rarely budgeted or acknowledged, yet it is constant.