Homeful combats the homelessness crisis in New York City by providing access to shelters and rooms to houseless people through a shelter find-and-reserve application to improve their quality of life.
We aim to serve the houseless people of NYC.
Homeful aims to restore dignity and autonomy to the houseless people of NYC by creating a digital space for mutual aid that translates into the real world and inspires New Yorkers to help their community members and destigmatize the houseless.
Homeful is a community-based product that allows users to reserve a bed from a person, a shelter, or both enabling houseless people to have autonomy over their housing options and feel respected. Users can indicate the type of housing they are looking for and receive filtered results to select from and reserve. Users can submit honest reviews of a shelter or room that can be viewed by others and can contact us with questions or support.
There are several reasons why people become homeless like unsafe home environments, “eviction, inadequate affordable housing, job loss, domestic violence, and hazardous housing conditions”(Stacy M. Brown). In America, there are estimated to be 552,830 people becoming homeless every day. Of those, “65% are sheltered whereas 35% live on the streets”. (The State Of Homelessness In The US, Smiljanic Stasha). Every day that number continues to grow.
In NYC streets, public spaces, and the subway, houselessness is a critical problem in New York City. According to a 2021 Coalition of the Homeless report, 640 houseless people died, of which 489 were sheltered, in NYC streets during the 2021 Fiscal year (Duggan)--while NYC has a shelter system in place; the system is complex, and even if you are housed, you can continue to be in danger. In NYC “ there is an assessment period of approximately 21 days” when you submit a shelter application before you are placed in an “official shelter” where stays are longer term (Coalition for the Homeless). Short-term shelters require a same-day waistline with no guarantee to be admitted.
Finding a shelter or bed to sleep in is a broken process in the NYC shelter system. Currently, in NYC houseless people do not know how long it might to get into a shelter. Longer term shelters require a waiting and assessment period before placement and short-term shelters require same-day wait lines that are cut off once the shelter reaches capacity leaving people with no place to sleep after waiting hours.
Homeful aims to provide access to essential information, like housing and community activities. Giving houseless people the option to choose from different shelters and homes in New York City while reducing the number of people living on the streets. With Homeful, homeless people are not limited to just shelters, as we help them narrow their search to include people with rooms to spare as well. Using Homeful, the user can get information like safety, cleanliness, and overall experience about their choice of place, connect with it and make a reservation in one place.
Key technical challenges include finding an API with all the NYC shelter information, integrating a map that shows shelter locations, authentication for sign-in and sign-up because we want to make our sign-is secure and safe, and filtering housing options based on the search selections.
Extension opportunities include creating a dynamic map that displays shelter and bed locations after preference selection allowing users to make informed decisions based on location, distance, and various factors, a bookmark feature so users can save housing options they liked, and a reporting feature for housing that is unsafe.