TIMELINE
This was a hackathon project with QWER Hacks @ UCLA. The project was complete in 48 Hours in January 2023
Awards
Most Accessible Hack by Fidelity
3rd Place for Housing Crises Category
PROBLEM
Underrepresented communities such as LGBTQIA+ folks, people of color, people with disabilities, and immigrants face discrimination in the housing market
At UCLA, student housing can be an incredibly stressful search, especially because landlords are not transparent with their listings on apartment/house directory websites. This in combination with the fact that LGBTQ adults are twice as likely as the general population to have experienced homelessness in their lifetime puts minorities at an even bigger disadvantage during their house hunt (Wilson 2020).
SOLUTION
A platform inspired by levels.fyi that provides transparent information about housing prices in the Westwood area to ensure equitable pricing for all.
Addressing the housing insecurity of these groups will require targeted efforts to combat discrimination, provide support services, and increase the availability of affordable housing options that are welcoming and inclusive. We thought about other transparency platforms like Level.fyi as project inspiration. Salaries are often kept under the table when it is crucial to minorities to know exactly how much they are making in relation to their coworkers. Publishing salaries year after year allows for people to know for certain they are receiving a fair and equitable wage in relation to others. Our plan is to apply this method to house hunting so students can post their lease prices to future renters can know if they are getting a price that makes sense.
FINAL PRODUCT & DEMO
Compare Price History
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH & BRAINSTORMING
Technology Used
Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Canva
Styling done with Material UI and Tailwind CSS
Front-End in Next.js
Back-End in Firebase
used Firestore to create apartment listings
Web hosting with Vercel
Logo Design
Browsing Apartments
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Obviously, time was the biggest constraint with this project, but in the future, we plan on adding several features to enhance user experience such as:
Authentication using Firebase so users can save listings and create a profile
Finish training AI model to determine authenticity of lease prices via lease uploading
Find an affordable way to store images of apartments and create a price comparison feature.
In general, this was such a cool experience! It was my first hackathon and I learned to do front-end styling using tailwind CSS for the first time. It took a lot of coffee, but this experience was very worth it and I got to listen to some very inspiring members of the LGBTQIA+ community in tech.