MarchBNB: how open source and community housed over 500 people
During college I was very politically active: I went to an anti-war conference in Berkeley and to DC to protest Bush’s second inauguration, but that all sort of dried up once Obama was elected in 2008 and my new life as a software engineer in New York City started. It just didn’t seem as vital anymore, you know? Even when Romney ran against Obama in 2012, it seemed that we would be OK either way.
Trump was something different.
I found Clinton’s lifetime of public service very inspiring, and it was exciting to elect our first female president. My college friend and co-activist was hired by the campaign to lead a group, DevProgress, inspired by the groups formed around Sanders’ primary campaign to build open source apps.
One of the apps that DevProgress built and deployed was HillaryBNB, a site that was a fork of another app called BernieBNB. After the election, it seemed imperative to me that we continue the energy we had building for progressive movements, and an organizer in DevProgress mentioned that some of his contacts were planning a March on Washington.
I copied the app, and with the help of another group, Blue Boost, we reskinned it to match the branding of the march, and we were featured on the March’s resources site. We launched on January 10th, 11 days before the march.
On January 20th, 10 days later and the day before the march, we had 1564 users, 161 hostings and 740 visits. We pretty consistently had a 1:5 ratio of hosts to visitors, which seemed pretty good (a lot better than I was expecting, to be honest) especially since some hosts were willing to take multiple groups.
I ran some surveys a couple days after the march to see how people used the app:
- Our most generous host had 8 marchers stay with them!
- 90% of hosts also attended the march
- Visitors came from all over the country (and a few from Canada!)
- 60% of visitors said they would be unable to attend the march without free/low-cost housing
- 100% of visitors and hosts would use MarchBNB again (thank you thank you)
I asked for some stories that I could share:
I LOVED march bnb. Our host was incredible. We stayed 6 blocks from the capital in her awesome home, for free. Could not have paid for better accommodations. She and her husband made up rooms for us, fed us, invited us out with their friends, and made us feel so welcome and comfortable. Their spirit and generosity were one of the best parts of our time in DC. Really, an incredible reminder of how rad people can be — just when we needed it.
Our host was so wonderful. She told us how to get around the city and offered us a wonderful place to stay. I took a leap of faith and brought my 18 year old and my 1 year old to a total strangers house. I believed in the march and the women who were marching. I knew we would be safe and probably even safer than staying in a hotel because we would be with someone who was on our side. In today’s world it is sometime hard to believe that genuine kindness and goodness still exist in this country. I found it with our host. She was a wonderful woman. We will be forever grateful for her kindness.
Our host was an incredibly welcoming woman. She was flexible with our arrival time, which we needed, and had fresh linens set on the bed for us to be able to sleep right away. We all enjoyed breakfast together in the morning while listening to local radio and discussing the day’s march. She even sent us on our way with power bites from her co-op. It was the perfect fuel for the day’s events! It was an incredible experience. We were so happy to have her generous hospitality.
Our guests were two wonderful, passionate inspired women (a mother and daughter) who drove up from SC on a Friday night, marched Saturday into the evening and drove back that night (!). I was honored to be able to give them a place to stay given their dedication and stamina.
We had a fantastic experience! We hosted two college students from James Madison University in Virginia, and a group of 5 women from Atlanta. We had a wonderful time getting to know each other and felt at ease with each other from the start. We can’t wait to do it again!
Hosting our six guests only enriched our experience with the March. Their passion was contagious with many of them driving all through the night to get here. For many of us, this was our first experience with a large demonstration so there was comfort in having a ready-made group to share it with. This was also the first time we have ever hosted ‘strangers’ in our home but they definitely left as friends. (age of hosts: 66 and 69; age of guests:18–53 representing Florida, North Carolina and New York)
I posted an ad to share a small room in a small house outside Baltimore, saying it was for 2 people, so when I got a response from a mom coming with 3 kids I was a bit iffy about the lack of space. I’m so glad though that we did it, because Heidi and her family were awesome! She was driving from Ohio with her 3 kid, age 1, 5, and 9, which was impressive to begin with, and my sister-in-law, my partner and I all bonded with her, and our son became instant buds with her two older kids (he did not like the baby being so loud, haha). […] Also, that night when we finally got back home to Baltimore around 7, we had a pizza, popcorn and ice cream feast while watching Harry Potter movie #4, which was how we kept those kiddos walking for the whole day. This morning we woke up late to find the 3 older kids all playing board games and pokemon quietly in the living room — that was a thing of beauty since it let all the grown-ups recover with our coffee before Heidi and the kids headed home.
Loved hosting! I ended up committing to two groups — one group of 3 from upstate NY and one group of 4 college students from Memphis. One of my husband’s coworkers also decided to stay in town before going back home to Pittsburgh, so we had 8 total people staying with us. It was so great! Both of the MarchBNB groups were in school (college or grad school) and told me they wouldn’t have been able to come if they had to pay for housing. We have a big house in the suburbs and I was like — THIS is how we can contribute!
It was an amazing privilege to host the app! Unfortunately, I have to take it down now, but stay tuned: already the Scientists March on DC will have marchers that need a place to stay, and it was pointed out that an app like MarchBNB could be used to host refugees during this current crisis.
If you want to help out, you can find me on Ragtag or Progressive Coders Network! We have a lot of work to do!
