I know, I know. We’ve been conspicuously absent from this blog for a while. In truth, we’ve been so busy running all over the city installing Heat Seek sensors, connecting with lawyers, attending tenant association meetings, and supporting folks in housing court that we haven’t had much time to share our progress with anyone outside our core team.
But today’s the day we’re changing all that. Get ready!
Update:
- We’re in 50 buildings this winter (a HUGE increase from 6 last winter). William made a great map of all the buildings we’re in by City Council district, which you can check out here.
- 10 of the buildings we’re in are NYCHA buildings. Did you know that NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in North America? Between 400,000 and 600,000 people live in NYCHA housing, but it’s been allowed to fall into disrepair and currently has a $16 billion capital backlog.
- We have 10 cases with lawyers in housing court. As many of you know, this represents a very important goal for us this winter as we explore the variety of ways tenants use our data to get better outcomes in court.
- Speaking of lawyers, we’ve grown our legal partners to include Legal Aid, Legal Services NYC, Brooklyn Legal Services Corp A, UJC, and MFY.
- We’ve also grown our network of community partners to include CASA, Crown Heights Tenant Union, Flatbush Tenant Coalition, Pratt Area Community Council, Tenants and Neighbors, and UHAB.
- Our legal & community partners represent our pipeline - they tell us which buildings are good candidates for Heat Seek sensors. By growing our partner network, we’re able to help more New Yorkers in need.
- We’re spending the spring compiling success stories. We’re interviewing our tenants, community partners, and lawyers to get a sense of how they used our data this winter to get their heat restored. We’ll be compiling and sharing that soon!
In February, we also started our time at Beespace. Its a fantastic incubator with a ton of great supports (both financial and programmatic), and soon we’ll be working from there full time. We hold a weekly meetup there on Wednesdays from 6pm-8pm that’s open to the public - feel free to join us!
We’ve got so much more to share, but that’s enough for one post. More to come soon…