Designing Service for Homeless People
Where It All Began
About two weeks ago, I decided to participate Don’t Walk By for homeless outreach. Don’t Walk By is an initiative where thousands of volunteers come together over the course of four weekends and provide hot meals, medical services, a place to sleep and prayers for homeless people in New York City. I couldn’t make up my mind until the last minute but my heart spoke to me to give it a try anyway. I didn’t know what to expect as this was my first time.
Getting Informed and Assigned
At around 1:30 pm, I entered Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for registration. There were over hundred volunteers from all walks of lives. Teams were divided into street outreach team, meal providers and medical providers. For every street outreach teams, there was one team leader who were trained few weeks prior to the day of volunteer. I was assigned to a team that was composed of about 10 people. Our team was assigned to East Harlem covering about 6 block radius.
Hitting the Street
As my team was walking to 102nd St to begin the outreach, the team leader gave us tips on how we should approach a homeless person. Sometimes, it’s ambiguous if a person is homeless or not. One strategy that I learned from a team leader is to ask a person if he knows any people that might need help in vicinity.
This way, you are learning about the neighborhood and also hinting out that you showed up to offer help. This tactic is nice because you can get desired information without offending the feeling.
Our team walked about 3 hours and engaged in couple of good conversations with people in need. They were happy to be engaged in conversations and they were glad that people reached out to them.
For the first time, I saw homeless people as my brothers and sisters.
I felt ashamed that how I was quick to judge people based on the appearance. No one chooses to be a homeless. Usually, it’s a sequence of bad choices that lead them into downward spiral. But also, it’s a lack of access and neglect that leave these people stranded.
I realized that this is a systematic problem that can be solved via design.
Ideation
After this experience, I came back home and began to jot down some of the challenges and learnings. Here are some of the initial notes.
- It is hard to pin point where the homeless people are.
- There is a lack of continuity between volunteers and people in need.
- Homeless people don’t have access to smartphone most of the time. Thus lacking in digital presence.
- Chronic homelessness cause loss of 30 years in life expectancy.
- Most people don‘t know where to begin when they want to help out.
- Public shelter can be a dangerous place.
Sketching
While jotting down challenges and learnings, I soon began to imagine a platform where both volunteers and homeless people can benefit from. I started to sketch a branding and wireframes soon after.
Putting Things Together
As I was sketching wireframes, I reflected on my personal experience and began to prioritize things that both volunteers and homeless people need the most. Here are four things I noticed.
- A place to exchange comments between homeless people and the public
- A quick way to hail relief bus
- Map service where volunteers can mark and find homeless people.
- An alternative way for public shelter
Logging Homeless People in the System
In order to enable communication between homeless person and the public, volunteers need to log a homeless person in the system. This is based on the assumption that a homeless person doesn’t have access to a smartphone. Once the homeless person’s basic information is logged, people may start posting positive messages for him. This will help creating supportive behavioral mechanism as a result.
Creating Conversation Loop
During the outreach, volunteers print out these messages and give it to a homeless person. In return, volunteers may record voice messages from a homeless person and post on behalf of a homeless person to create a conversation loop.
Donation
People can also donate to a homeless person by tapping ‘Donate’ button in detail page. If a homeless person has a wish list, public can reach that goal by donating together like GoFundMe. Some special tax breaks or matching program from corporation could help.
Hailing Relief Bus for Medical Assistance
Another thing we can improve is by sharing real time location when a homeless person seeks an urgent medical attention. If a volunteer is present, she can hail a relief bus for a homeless person using an app. If a volunteer is not present, homeless person can use modified version of Amazon Dash Button to hail a relief bus. With abundant wifi hotspots in NYC, I think this can work with some visual feedback.
Alternative Shelter Solution
Lastly, a comment that I got from a homeless person during the outreach was that homeless people really don’t like public shelters. Often times, people will steal other people’s stuff. In result, there are fights happening in public shelters. In addition, there are drug dealers who are selling drugs to homeless people inside of a shelter.
With proper incentive structure set by city government, airbnb hosts can perhaps allow homeless people to stay over for a day. I know this sounds like a daydream but I also think it can be done.
Reflection
What I know about the homelessness is very limited. I still have lots to learn about this issue to get a better grasp. However, I do believe that this is a systematic and societal flaw that can be improved significantly via design and public exposure.
I see homeless people with different perspectives after the experience at Don’t Walk By. The experience gave me hope and made me to think what I can do to help solve this issue. The design proposal is at an infant stage and I welcome any feedback to make this into a better solution. I think this is right time where we can help alleviate homelessness in our urban community by utilizing the tools we have. There will be another Don’t Walk By this coming Saturday in NYC if you are interested.
