Dear Heat Seek Advocates, Partners, and Friends,
It is with immense gratitude that we write to you today. After an eventful journey spanning a decade of housing advocacy and tenants rights work, Heat Seek is closing its doors.
Since our inception in 2014, Heat Seek has been at the forefront of leveraging technology to champion housing justice in New York City. Our mission to ensure safe, healthy, and affordable housing for all has been at the core of everything we do. Together with all of you, we've worked to demonstrate that the process for investigating and resolving heat complaints in NYC is broken, but that simple, innovative technology can be thoughtfully deployed to help tenants advocate for their housing rights and take a stand against bad landlords.
While we have been unable to secure sustainable funding to continue Heat Seek’s work, we are incredibly proud of the legacy we are leaving behind – a legacy that will continue to serve New Yorkers beyond Heat Seek’s existence. Through New York City’s Heat Sensors Program, which Heat Seek worked to establish through legislation in 2019, the city’s worst landlords must now install temperature sensors in their buildings, allow the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to monitor the data, and submit to bi-weekly inspections by the HPD until they can prove the heat problems in their building have been resolved. Through our legislative advocacy, we've pushed HPD a little further into the 21st century, ensuring a more responsive and accountable housing agency going forward.
As we pause to reflect on our journey, we are grateful to the tenant organizers, attorneys, community based organizations, and elected officials who invited us to work alongside you in the fight for housing justice. While we may have provided some technical expertise, you work day in and day out to keep tenants housed and fight for a more just housing ecosystem in NYC. To each and every one of you who has opened your advocacy and organizing space to Heat Seek, we extend our deepest gratitude. It has been an honor to support your work.
While Heat Seek may be saying goodbye, our legacy of innovation and impact will endure. For those interested in learning more about how we arrived at this decision and what will become of Heat Seek’s tools and resources, we welcome you to explore our blog post.
We extend our heartfelt appreciation to the community of tenants and advocates who have embraced Heat Seek and allowed us to stand alongside them in the fight for housing justice.
With warm regards and enduring gratitude,
Noelle Francois
Executive Director, Heat Seek