Updated (July 24, 2017)
After a year, our EZHouz project could still be helpful in Toronto. According to Metro News, people have to renew his spot each year on the *complicated* bureaucracy of affordable housing waitlist.
We were challenged to participate in TPL Hackathon 2016, a great hacking event hosted by Toronto Public Library in collaboration with Civic Tech Toronto, Social Planning Toronto, Open Data Institute Toronto. There, we would do a prototype for poverty reduction in Toronto.
Selecting 10 potential ideas in a brainstorm, based on the official Toronto Poverty Reduction Strategy document, we saw that waiting lists are big, the process can be more than 10 years, and applicants can be removed from the list easily.
The websites where people can apply for housing uses old technologies and its instructions are hard to understand.
It is [her home] your sanctuary, a safe space. You should be proud of your living situation.
The unit was infected with red ants. I had to re-register, and I have been on the waiting list again since 2012.
Our team selected the datasets (open data), and divided responsibilities;
We went to CODE.
After 2 weeks, we presented the project at Toronto Reference Library.
It contains 6 Issue-areas, 17 recommendations, and a set of actions where EZHouz project is based on:
Recommendation: Increase the supply of affordable housing
Action (3.4): Seek opportunities to provide affordable housing in existing or proposed public buildings
Recommendation: Increase service access and availability
Action (4.3): Revise program registration, outreach, and delivery to ensure services are accessible to vulnerable residents
Action (4.7): Ensure that homelessness and housing support services meet the diverse needs of low-income Torontonians
I think this idea can make the search and application process easier as well as keeping track of submissions to waiting lists.
-- Reema Tarzi
(Digital Project Manager| Mentor at TPL Hackathon)
The tool was well conceived, with good insight into the challenges and consideration related to the client, particularly the consideration of proximity to key amenities appropriate to the population. It pulled the appropriate data well and was responsive. I was also impressed by the design which was clean and accessible with strong graphic tools and an engaging overall feel.
-- Sean Meagher
(Executive Director at Social Planning Toronto)
An impressive work you guys did on the Housing App.
-- Bill Mann
(Mentor at TPL Hackathon)
