-
Login
-
Organization information
Inspiration
We were shocked to learn that 1500 calls per week to 2-1-1 were for utility and housing assistance. In other research, we learned that currently it takes up to two hours per client to contact 5-15 outside agencies seeking one that has funding available for that client's eligibility - on that day.
What it does
Our SustainNest Application connects case counselors to a better experience to assist those who need utility or rent assistance to prevent homelessness. Our team created a searchable application based on eligibility criteria of 38 Utility and Rent Assistance providers in St. Louis City & County with need-based prioritization at time of coordinated access for referral of resources.
Our app:
• Saves hours of calling to find details & available resources to help clients. • Reduces access time to assistance & improves service provider workflow • Reduces time on inbound and outbound calls on these matters.
Challenges we ran into
Changing from procedural to object oriented development in the middle of our development. Multi-user updates required us to use GitHub to manage version control.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Masterminding with, learning from, and developing a team of 8.
What we learned
We learned from the homeless panel and follow up interviews with St. Patrick's center employees here at Globalhack. We also called 2-1-1 to interview a dispatcher, had personal stories from teammates that worked for energy companies, and a teammate whose mother was homeless and helped by St. Patrick's Center in 2014. This helped us to understand all sides of accessing and distributing assistance.
What's next for SustainNest
Phase 2 of SustainNest will include search functionality for additional prevention services and include reporting features that will allow the users to gather and use data for making future decisions on allocation of resources and help in acquiring additional federal and private grant funding.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.