NYCHelpNow

Inspiration

One large problem that NYC currently faces is homelessness--specifically speaking, the problem is about the homeless being unable to find shelters to sleep in. We wanted to create something that could aid with this issue, something that the homeless population could potentially use in order to find open, available shelters that they can stop by.

What it does

Our website is split into two sections: First, we have the map view which showcases waypoints of various drop-in shelters across NYC, offering directions and crucial information such as availability, slots, and more. We then replicated this into another section which is the list view that shows all of these shelters.

How we built it

We used Leaflet and Google Maps API for the map For getting real-time data, we used PostgreSQL via Supabase The backend was built using Python and Flask

Challenges we ran into

Since we didn't have a lot of experience in developing websites and working with the frontend/backend, we had to heavily rely on AI and our mentors for help moving forward. There were a lot of errors to fix through each rendition and it got complicated at times.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

In the end, we were able to build a working prototype of our original idea. Although we weren't able to implement all the features we wanted, we were able to build something. The biggest accomplishment was actually having the live-data.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how the frontend and backend works, since we only have a little bit of experience within these fields.

What's next for NYCHelpNow

Moving forward with this project, we wanted to implement more features that further enrich our website. These things include availability to other languages, adding reservation features, and actually partnering and collaborating with these homeless shelters so that access can be easier and more reliable.