New digital tool will help NYC reduce homelessness

New York City hopes an app can help it reduce homelessness.

Around 62,000 homeless people live in New York City, and the city's "demand for shelter" has shot up 79 percent in the last 10 years. But the city's government -- along with community organizations Project Hospitality and BronxWorks -- hopes an app will help them get a better handle on why the homeless population is growing, and how they might begin to reverse the trend.

The app, as Wired reported, is called StreetSmart. It's essentially a database that allows city officials and nonprofit employees to compile and share information about individual homeless people that will illuminate what those individuals need.

The app will allow social workers to note a person's medical needs, housing history, services they're looking for or may have declined in the past, and any family members that they might be able to contact. Social workers will also be able to access that information in the app if it's been previously recorded.

"The application will give information to our street workers which will be invaluable to offering options to individual to persuade them to come in," said Steven Banks, head of the New York City Department of Social Services. "You can see in real time the importance of having this information available at your fingertips."

Once the database has stored health, demographic, and other data from a wide range of individuals, city officials hope to better understand problems such as growing homelessness in a particular area and health issues among certain homeless residents.

On an individual basis, StreetSmart should help city officials keep tabs on issues faced by people who often find themselves in and out of shelters.

If, for example, a homeless person leaves one shelter and checks in at another several days later, a social worker at the second shelter will theoretically have a better understanding of that person's needs.

Of course, understanding doesn't necessarily lead to solving the issues at hand.

"Look, our general takeaway is that this type of program or tech solution is not actually a solution to homelessness," Giselle Routhier, the policy director at Coalition for the Homeless. She praised the mayor's office back in 2015 for its plan to build 15,000 supportive housing units, but feels a tool like StreetSmart is -- at best -- tangential to the issue at hand. "This type of model doesn't seem to be getting at the main root of the problem, which is affordable housing."

If the app doesn't coincide with an expansion in the number of shelters, its use might amount to little. But Banks sees StreetSmart as a way to streamline the process of getting people into lasting homes.

"It's not an either-or situation," Banks said. "The application will actually help connect those individuals to those units so there isn't a delay in matching people to available units."