Tech for Social Good: Georges @ JustFix.NYC
Note: This article was originally published in the TechShift Alliance Medium publication. Check out TechShift Alliance to learn more about international, student-led, tech for social good initiatives!
As we continue to navigate the changing landscape of COVID-19, the notion of community care is becoming more important than ever. Community care, which can be understood as building workarounds for systems that don’t inherently support care, can range from anything from supporting others (i.e. bringing groceries to your elderly and immunocompromised neighbors) to building initiatives that work to bring accessible healthcare, education, etc. to your community (i.e. TechShift’s very own digital aid initiative, launched in response to COVID-19). At TechShift, we and many of our member organizations actively practice community care by working with local communities to identify existing problems and collaborate on technological solutions. In this series, we want to continue to explore what it means to practice community care, to inspire ourselves and others to do the same. Today, we’re learning more about Georges Clement and his housing justice organization, JustFix.NYC, and how they take care of those in their community.
Meet Georges — JustFix.NYC
Georges is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of JustFix.NYC, a non-profit that supports New Yorkers in neglectful housing situations with technology that helps them build well-documented cases and connect with community and legal advocates. As a native New Yorker, the issue of housing injustice is close to Georges’ heart, so at its roots, JustFix.NYC is about supporting your neighbors, and the neighborhoods that make New York so special.
What inspired you to start JustFix.nyc?
My co-founders and I all grew up in the New York area, in Morningside Heights. When I came back to my neighborhood after college, I saw just how much my neighborhood had changed. The level of displacements, evictions, and homelessness had reached a level that no city should be proud of. So at a basic level, the idea of JustFix comes at supporting our neighbors and the neighborhoods that make New York so special.
In terms of logistically starting JustFix, my co-founders and I came from different backgrounds in technology and all met through the Blue Ridge Labs Fellowship. I came from a Product Manager background, and had worked on some education startups in New York, while my co-founders came from Engineering and Design backgrounds. At the fellowship, we started looking into where data and technology could play a meaningful role in addressing these significant housing issues in NYC. We started working with tenants, tenant organizers, city officials, etc. to assess if there were areas where we could apply our skills in this issue area to make a meaningful difference. It was the insights that came from those conversations that laid the groundwork for what we ended up developing as initial tools, and building out as an organization and a theory of change.
JustFix went through the Blue Ridge Labs fellowship. What was that process like for getting JustFix off the ground?
The Blue Ridge Labs fellowship brings in a bunch of folks with different skill sets and generates buy-in on a particular approach: a human-centered design, community-first approach. This meant that we were supposed to come into the fellowship suspending many of our preconceived notions of what we should build. This is why it was important for us to be working with folks from communities around New York that are dealing with a variety of housing issues, whose day to day are helping people organize tenant associations, file cases in housing court, etc. Our design process involved everything from sitting down and having conversations with these people to sitting in the back of housing court and observing court proceedings to participating in tenant association meetings. It was really important for us to understand needs at that level before we get to the level where we start brainstorming solutions. Over the course of a few months, we then went through a couple iteration of ideas before we landed on the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of JustFix services, which was focused on helping tenants who didn’t have legal representation, but needed to take action in order to get repairs to their apartments, or stop their landlord from harassing them. Our MVP was focused on getting them tools to present a more formalized case in housing court.
How has COVID-19 impacted JustFix? How has it transformed the way that JustFix cares for its community?
There are two primary problems facing renters right now. The first problem deals with quality of housing. JustFix has always been focused on improving renters’ quality of housing, but the issue has worsened now that people have been forced to stay at home. Since roughly about 20% of New York City renters (there are about 5.4 million total New York City renters) live in what the city qualifies as “deficient housing”, i.e. it has three or more maintenance deficiencies in the home such as mice, rats, lead paint, lack of heat, etc., this impacts approximately 1 million renters in New York. Low quality of housing has direct health implications, so this is an important issue for us to address. The second problem is that people are struggling to pay rent right now. With over 20 million people who are now unemployed (as of April 15, 2020), that is a huge number of people who have struggled to pay April rent, and it’s going to be an even bigger drop of people who will be able to pay May rent.
One of the primary features of our services in New York helps people to create court filings to bring an affirmative case in housing court for repairs or harassment issues. We have adapted this feature to create emergency filings in New York City housing court, and you can now complete the filing process all online, so that people can do it from the safety of their own homes. This is one piece of our solution to help New York City renters address housing quality issues. The other piece, which was just piloted in LA a couple weeks ago, helps tenants to send a notice to their landlord that they won’t be able to pay rent for a COVID-19 related reason, and then it cites the local protections, i.e. the state’s eviction protection policy. This program also allows people to connect with their local organizing group, and gives additional information on what their rights are locally. It also allows tenants to join collective action efforts, such as the national campaign to cancel rent, mortgage, and utility payments.
Where do you want to take JustFix next? How do you plan on growing the organization?
New York is our home base, and we have really deep services in New York. We believe that JustFix should be a household name in New York, and if New York City renters have housing issues, they can use JustFix services to take action. However, housing injustice and inequality is not a problem that is unique to New York. Other cities across the U.S., like LA, SF, Seattle, etc. share similar high rates of homelessness and eviction, yet don’t have resources like JustFix available. We have been invited in by other groups across the country to come in and collaborate on replicating the sets of tools that we’ve made available in New York for other cities facing similar housing crises. For now, we’re piloting with a partner in LA and we’ll see where it goes from there.
If others want to get involved or work with JustFix, how should they get in touch?
For people interested in working at JustFix, they can check out this jobs page for open positions. We also have a link to donate, which you can find here. In terms of contacting, you can keep in touch with us here, and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
