HUMANE HOUSING
A second home chance for
formerly incarcerated people.
A project that aims to help formerly incarcerated people (FIP’s) find a place they could call home. Navigating the housing process can be manual, selective and put little regard to the human behind the application. FIPs encounter discrimination and Landlords have a lack of trust to rent to FIPs.
SOLUTION
Our solution was based on automating the housing application process. Buddies are matched with FIPs reducing the friction of submitting rental applications. We empower FIP’s to select directly from landlord’s apartment listings that they are matched with. Landlords are able to build trust with their tenants through our background checks, credit reports, and automatic rental payment setup. We list tax breaks directly on apartment listings so landlords are incentivised to rent to FIPs. Our main goal is to combat homelessness and recidivism. Fortunately, this idea had legs and after an intense 48hour journey we were able to move from IDEA & PROTOTYPE to PITCH.
ROLE
Senior Designer
TEAM
Cristal Mirror
Olivia Wilcox
Diana Tereshchenko
Brianna Singer
Sejal Behere
AWARD
1st Prize, Hacking for Humanity — Columbia University x Girls in Tech NYC
Nationwide in the US, 600,000 people return from prison each year to try to rebuild their lives. Around 50,000 people go directly to a shelter after being released from prison. 71% of people returning from prison are reincarcerated during the first year.