Dear Heat Seek Advocates, Partners, and Friends:
We started Heat Seek 9 years ago with a very simple mission: heat in your home is a human right and a source of dignity.
Heat Seek empowers tenants to collect their own temperature data to prove insufficient heat and illegal housing conditions. Tenants across the five boroughs have used their temperature data to support rent strikes, demand repairs, and defend against evictions. The insights from Heat Seek data have powered research and policy that have changed the way the city investigates and resolves heating violations. We are enormously proud of the work that tenants and advocates like yourselves have accomplished.
The world looks very different today than it did when we started Heat Seek. We are in a post-covid eviction crisis of unprecedented proportions, and attention, funding, and resources are necessarily focused on eviction prevention. While Heat Seek has always been a small and resourceful team, we do not believe we can achieve the kind of impact we desire as a standalone operation any longer.
After 9 years in operation, Heat Seek is putting its program on hiatus to explore a path towards sustainability. Pausing the program will give us time to seek opportunities for deep partnership, acquisition by a larger nonprofit, creative joint fundraising, a train the trainer model - everything is on the table during this period of exploration.
In the short term, this means:
Heat Seek will not be providing any new sensors this season and will be unable to assist with troubleshooting sensors that are currently installed.
However, the Heat Seek app will remain live and all historical temperature data will continue to be available for download.
Sensors that are connected to an established wifi connection should continue to function normally, however cellular sensors will no longer be operational as the SIM cards have expired.
If you have an upcoming court date and plan to use Heat Seek data, please get in touch. We will do our best to support any work that is a continuation of last year’s program.
This fall, we are asking you to partner with us on a new project – exploring a sustainable path forward for this work. Heat Seek has always worked in partnership with community organizations and legal service providers, housing justice advocates, and funders - it is integral to how we achieve impact. We are asking you, our community, to help us explore where the next phase of the mission lies, and how we can continue to serve NYC tenants.
If you would like to be part of our brainstorming and idea generating, please reach out. We would love to hear your ideas about paths forward for Heat Seek. We will also be assembling a brain trust this fall to help us explore the viability of a possible acquisition of Heat Seek by a larger organization, as well as the creation of a self service curriculum for organizers and attorneys. If you would like to participate, reach out and we’ll make sure you get an invite.
We are so grateful to have developed Heat Seek alongside each and every one of you. We are committed to finding a sustainable home for the tool and services that Heat Seek has been providing to NYC tenants and their advocates, and hope you’ll join us in that endeavor.