Ex-con Assistance

main page
questions for user
entries page
resource portal

Inspiration

Homeless people struggle to find jobs. But ex-convicts also struggle with the same issues. 65% of ex-convicts are unemployed. Shawshank Redemption was an inspiration highlighting issues felonies face trying to redeem themselves after their criminal records.

What it does

Offer resources to ex-convicts such as a job-finder/job-filterer and a portal to many other resources.

Job-finder first asks the user to take a quiz which filters out the kind of jobs they would be interested in. Then we ask for their location. With their location, we're able to display a list of felon-friendly jobs that would be willing to hire them in spite of their criminal record. Examples are fast food places like McDonald's, Subway, or stores like Safeway or Dollar Tree. Each location entry has their own data like its phone-number, website, address, etc.

How we built it

We built it first using html and css to create a static webpage. Then javascript* to do the interactive elements like the *page transitions, and the **data processing element which asks for the user's preferences and information.

In our script.js file we fetch functions from our node.js/express file, which allows us to interactively run user data. First we run the user's address to run through opencage-api, returning back the related coordinates to script.js. Next we run those coordinates and the radius of how far they want to search into overpass-api. Sorting through a list of felon-friendly jobs, we're able to export a json of all the locations that accept them. Then this json gets put into our score/filtering system, giving a list of strongly favored jobs, and weakly favored jobs. This data then gets transferred back into script.js, relaying the information in entries.

Challenges we ran into

Little experience in front-end development, javascript, and node. Getting stuck with how to fetch methods from the server, and overall javascript syntax.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Completing the job-searching system via the back and forth transfer of data from webpage to server, especially having little to no prior knowledge of anything website related.

What we learned

Learned more about the web-development/full-stack world, learning about middleware, node, and express. We also learned more about the resources available for those who are struggling due to their criminal history.

What's next for Ex-con Assistance

Polish up the styling of all the websites, and the filtering system to make a cleaner and more complete project. More research, and perhaps a housing search.