Shelter & Services Search Engine

Fast, easy, accurate services at you finger tips

In our mission of providing assistance to homeless and at risk college students we have been able to identify a major obstacle individuals encounter when seeking assistance. This multifaceted obstacle is the 1) difficulty of finding current service centers, 2) hours of operation, 3) services provided, 4) length of application period to receive services and 5) criteria of eligibility for services. For an individual with time and resources it may not seem like this would be such a hardship; but when you take into account these individuals do not have cell phones or easy internet access this becomes a huge burden to add on top of all the other struggles these individuals already face. It can become unbelievably depressing for an individual who has spent hours searching the internet for available assistance to only discover when they get to a service center they do not qualify or that it could take several days and a long application process to receive assistance.

Our proposal is to design a search engine specifically for social assistance programs such as food banks, homeless shelters and clothing assistance in order to better serve our demographic of individuals. The most common information needed in order to determine eligibility for services are age, gender, ethnicity and whether you have dependents. With this we would be able to determine quickly what services the individual qualified for, the documentation required for services and the process of receiving services. This could save individuals in search of services hours of time and from the devastating feeling of thinking you have finally found assistance only to be turned away because you do not qualify.

Regular use of the search engine will provide our organization with valuable de-identified data about the demographic we intend to help and allow us to better target our services. This search engine also provides dual use for the greater homeless community at large; in that it would also provide them with valuable time saving information on services they would qualify for. With this product countless numbers of people could be helped and served more efficiently and effectively.

The plan is to begin the data base in Washington State and continue to expand the areas covered as we are able to. In order to build the search engine we have already begun compiling a list of all homeless services in Washington and the requirements of receiving services. We plan on keeping our searches up to date by sending out a monthly automated email to service centers to confirm our information is up to date. Those centers that do not reply to the email will be called in order to verify our search engine information is complete and accurate.

This is a simple solution to a major problem of connecting homeless and at risk college students with services they need. We all too often take for granted our ability to access the internet, call institutions, do simple research to find services but to homeless and at risk students this can make a huge difference in allowing them to stay in school and achieve their academic dreams while becoming active and contributing members our society building a better tomorrow.

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