Inspiration
For our website idea "Ward" We were inspired by the unfortunate events that are surrounding the global pandemic. More businesses are unable to stay open and less jobs are available in person due to the lock down. Along with the lack of jobs, more individuals are facing evictions and could possibly be homeless. We decided to brainstorm different solutions that would assist this group specific and came up with our final idea
What it does
Our idea is creating a website that would help homeless individuals locate shelters across the GTA and give them the option to find out whether or not they carry PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) in the shelter they decided to reside at. The website would be able to locate any local shelter within the user's vicinity and provide them with a list of at least 5 or more available shelters in place, the time period you're able to remain at the shelter of your choice and directions for it. The website would also give you the option to input a new shelter into the system, helping us create a safe haven directory that would better assist those who are less fortunate
How we built it
Before the website was coded, our designers focused on creating a User Journey of what the typical user would take when they opened the website. For the design aspect of Ward, Figma was used to plan out the home page and gradually take the user from there to either login to the website or got straight to searching for the nearest shelter. After receiving directions, the user would land into a screen that would inform from after they arrive at the shelter. Another route we're designed is whether the user just wants to add a new shelter listing into our system and can do so by clicking add a new shelter. We've made sure that the website had at least 10 pages then worked on the coding aspect of the website
Our Developers decided to use HTML and Bootstrap to simplify the development process. To maintain an efficient workflow, we used GitHub for version control.
Ward is currently hosted on Firebase Hosting, which was very simple to setup once we created our Firebase project and initialized the repository.
The dataset used in Ward is from the City of Toronto: https://open.toronto.ca/dataset/daily-shelter-occupancy/. It is composed on daily occupancy rates of shelters, addresses of those shelters, and the shelter prerequisites.
We also used the Google Maps API to display the interactive map on Ward.
Challenges we ran into
Accomplishments that we're proud of
What we learned
No idea is too small nor big to take on. The problems we came up with were all related to the pandemic and while there are many different solutions to come up with for a topic like that, our main focus is better assisting the more venerable group during this chaotic time and it was the homeless community. Everyone deserves to have a warm bed, food and home security. If we can make one individual's life less stressful when it comes to finding shelter then our website has completed the objective we had.
What's next for Ward
The next step for our project is expanding the area we cover within our website, currently the shelters in our systems are located in the GTA but our goal is adding more locations in the near future and open up our directory to other areas that aren't necessarily in North America. The homeless community is large and if we can encourage more support in creating a larger network of shelters listed then it would be awesome. Another plan for this website is adding a feature that would locate public transit near by and a list of assistance programs that specifically help those who are less fortunate while the lock down is still on going.
We would also like to
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