Thesis Preliminary Exploration Research Plan

For at least the next two weeks my thesis project will focus more on research than action. The more people I talk to, the more I’m convinced my initial assumptions about tools aiding homelessness are all wrong. These next few weeks I plan to do as many interviews and desk research as possible. It feels more like exploration rather than research but I’m not sure of the information I’m looking for yet but more so a better understanding of the problem. What I know for sure so far:

NYC has 60k homeless people, and a good portion of this number are single men and a third are children.

• Primary cause is lack of affordable housing.
• homeless single adults have much higher rates of serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other severe health problems.
• The large majority of street homeless New Yorkers are living with mental illness or other severe health problems.
• African-American and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness. Approximately 58 percent of New York City homeless shelter residents are African-American, 31 percent are Latino, 7 percent are white, less than 1 percent are Asian-American, and 3 percent are of unknown race/ethnicity.

Outreach and community based organizations have had real impact in aiding homelessness:

• More than 75,000 people housed by participating communities since January 2015, including more than 40,000 veterans via Community Solutions
• The Bowery Mission provided more than 653,500 warm meals, 167,300 nights of shelter, distributed 46,400 articles of clothing, offered 13,300 showers and 1,300 onsite medical, dental and optometry exams.

Goals:

Discover patterns in people who have lived normal lives after suffering from homelessness.

Research Questions:

What role can families play in ending chronic homelessness?

What role must stakeholders play and for how long to create a sustainable solution before it can become self sufficient?

For communities with limited internet access what role does technology play in their lives?

What are the ethical implications of having a third party track an individuals spending ? Does this relinquish agency?

How do the unique security features around blockchain enable trust through transactions for communities who might be the least tech savvy?

What role does data collection play in this process and who owns the collection/distribution ?

Homelessness doesn’t exist in a bubble and neither does its solutions. They’re comprised of families, community activist, organizations, legislation, technology and very passionate people. More than any other project I’ve done before, the success of my thesis will depend on the amount of people within the community who validate its need and functions. The intersection of blockchain and the homeless is not a new problem but its seldom explored. They are are handful maybe 5 prominent projects out in the world. The space is extremely young with developing research and even less validated products. If there was anytime to begin its now.

Research Plan

Objective 2: by October 16

• Create surveys to send to homeless organization outreach staff
• Create an interview facilitation guide for homeless people
• Define discrete need
• Define user archetype
• Visit a shelter
• Refine problem statement
• Interview 3 homeless people

Objective 3: by October 23

• Interview 3 homeless people
• Interview 2 NYC homeless outreach staff
• Map technological limitations
• Map competitive landscape
• Interview 2 designers/engineers at homeless organizations
• Paper prototype sketching/test

Objective 3: by October 30

• Interview 3 homeless people
• test prototype with stakeholders
• test prototype with engineers
• Review problem statement

Goals:

• 50 homeless interview by final pitch time
• Observe practices in at least 5 different shelters
• Live functioning prototype
• 1 tested and validated real transaction
• Story critique from homeless community stakeholders
• Identity Primary user and Primary stakeholder
• Identify limitations and nice to haves
• Identify adoption risk

Inspirations:

• Hypergive: Digital Food Wallets for the homeless
• My Pass Initiative: Digital Identity for the homeless
• ThaneCoin: Property buyback program for the homeless

Methods:

• Stakeholder interviews
• Paper Prototypes
• Community Introductions
• Game simulation prototypes
• Secondary research (Books on blockchain and homelessness)
• Site visits (shelters & organizations)
• User testing
• Sketching
• On-site observation
• Tons of pitching (this won’t work without stakeholder buy in)
• Attend industry events

Milestones:

• Mapping out the system
• Prototyping with homeless users
• Identity Primary user and Primary stakeholder
• Identify limitations and nice to haves
• Identify adoption risk
• Pitching to at least 3 industry experts
• Define/Find my power user
• Test a live transaction
• Live functioning prototype
• Story validation by homeless community