Inspiration
The housing crisis is something that impacts us all in one way or another. Nobody should ever have to worry about their safety being wiped away by the randomness of mother nature and not being able to recover. Seeing the devastation that disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes can bring, it should be a goal of everybody to help out in any way they can.
What it does
This website is designed to be a hub for people who have been affected by a disaster. They can post that they are in dire need of a place to stay, and others may post ads that they have room available for survivors of disasters to stay. The site hopes to raise money for supporting those who give up parts of their home and for creating shelters, providing flood/home insurance, and improving the weather-resistance of destitute areas.
How I built it
I built this completely from scratch using HTML and CSS tutorials online. I used Visual Studio Code 2017 for my IDE, which provides next to nothing but color-coding. I started off with the bare-bones white page with black text and slowly added details, CSS elements, and pictures to turn it into what it is now. Given more time I would implement a forum approach to postings rather than submitting and waiting on an admin to approve and upload information.
Challenges I ran into
I have never developed a website before so I was completely out of my element. I was also working on this solo as the rest of my team wanted to work on a different project, and I was very passionate about this one. I also had a lot of information to cram in to very little time. The website currently implements PHP which took quite a bit to set up (ended up with an entire WAMP setup). I never knew how much there was to web development and how much more difficult it is than creating some command-line program.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
This is the first full website I've built. I completely built it from scratch and learned a lot through the process. I'm mostly proud of my progress in styling the webpage and adding personal flair. I had never considered web development as something I would see myself doing as a project, but I'm glad I got out of my comfort zone enough to do so.
What I learned
I learned so much in doing this project. I never realized quite how much of an impact natural disasters had on people over the long term. It wasn't until I looked at the data on the US Census showing how people were becoming more and more unable to afford homes that it really hit how fortunate I am to live in the situation I currently am in and how bad some people truly have it. I also learned quite a bit about web development and just how much work it really takes. Building a website from scratch and trying to have something that is aesthetically pleasing is quite challenging.
What's next for anthonymsalvati.github.io
I would love to make this idea become a reality. It would take quite a bit of work that I don't think I can quite handle right now, but with sponsorship and word of mouth I think this could spread into something huge that would greatly benefit the US and hopefully then the world. I will probably keep developing the site in my spare time as a project, but will not be able to make the dream come true on my own.
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