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BROOKLYN:
Tops in Civic Tech!
Winning NYC BigApps is no small feat; just ask the
hundreds of academics, designers, developers, entrepreneurs,
and New Yorkers at large who have competed
with technology solutions to some of the city’s
greatest civic challenges. Two of the biggest recent
winners hail from Brooklyn, and Borough President
Adams has taken notice, plugging their civic tech innovations
into his agenda for better connected communities.
In 2014, Heat Seek NYC was awarded top prize
by the New York City Economic Development Corporation
(NYCEDC) in their competition’s Live and Best
Connected Device Categories for their solution to remotely
track the temperature in homes during the winter
months. Their technology, using sensor hardware
and web applications, helps ensure that heat levels in
apartments fall within the legal range, while providing
data-based evidence to verify heating code abuse
claims in housing court. Borough President Adams
first forged connections back in 2014 between this
locally-based non-profit and a number of properties
managed by good-acting landlords such as Fifth Avenue
Committee, which agreed to use Heat Seek NYC on
a proactive monitoring basis. Last December, as part
of his larger focus on combating tenant harassment,
he detailed $5,000 in new funding his office has allocated
to build additional monitoring hardware at several
buildings across the borough. This included 178
Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, where sensor data
served as the basis for a lawsuit by tenants due to the
landlord’s failure to provide adequate heat.
“My message to landlords across Brooklyn is that
we’re watching; don’t harm your tenants’ quality of life
all because of greed,” said Borough President Adams.
“We are using cool technology to warm the homes of
Brooklynites, while putting bad-acting landlords on the
hot seat for their harassing behavior.”
The buildings selected for the expansion of this
partnership were chosen through a combination of
variables, including the number of 311 complaints,
community input to identify bad actors, and an analysis
of the 200 landlords not currently enrolled in the
New York City Department of Housing Preservation
and Development (HPD)’s Alternative Enforcement
Program (AEP). Borough President Adams explained
that he is only identifying 178 Rockaway Parkway as
a recipient in order to put all landlords in the borough
“on notice.” Going forward, he announced he is working
with the City Council on legislative action to expand the
utilization of heat sensors to combat tenant harassment,
as well as with New York City Housing Court to
train judges on how to interpret data collected by these
monitors.
“Heat Seek is grateful for the support of Borough
President Adams, and is excited to partner with his office
and community advocates throughout the borough
to target landlords who abuse their tenants by withholding
heat,” said Noelle Francois, executive director
of Heat Seek NYC. “With Borough President Adams’
support, we’re eager to build on this work and get
more sensors where they’re needed most in our city.”
In January, Borough President Adams rolled out a
partnership with another NYC BigApps champ, focused
on the challenge of ensuring Brooklynites receive the
resources that are continually ‘left on the table’ due
to gaps in access and information. Benefit Kitchen, a
financial literacy tool that uses state-of-the-art algorithms
to determine the eligibility and estimated dollar
amounts for more than a dozen federal, state, and
local benefits, won the contest’s Civic Engagement
Challenge in 2015. To date, the app has identified an
average of $13,000 per household in annual benefits,
without asking any personally identifiable information
such as one’s name or Social Security number.
“More energy has been put into the soundbite of
saying the benefits are available than the sound policy
of connecting the people who are in need with the benefits
they can receive,” said Borough President Adams.
“Many people in need don’t know how to go about addressing
those needs, and that’s what Benefit Kitchen
does. When it comes to helping the working poor and
others in need, we can now say, ‘There’s an app for
that!’”
Resources that Benefit Kitchen screens for include
Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicaid eligibility and
copay; Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) eligibility
and copay; school- or state-based child care eligibility
and copay; Headstart and school meals eligibility;
HEAP and Lifeline eligibility, and tax credits such as the
child care tax credit (CCTC), child tax credit (CTC), and
earned income tax credit (EITC). Borough President Adams
has allotted a $5,000 grant to support trainings on
the platform across the borough, as well as bringing
screenings to his office’s Constituent Assistance Center
(CAC), community board offices, child care centers,
schools, senior centers, and social service agencies.
“As a working mom without benefits living in Brooklyn,
I know the fear of not being able to provide housing,
food, child care, and health insurance for your family,”
said Melanie Lavelle, co-creator of Benefit Kitchen.
“We created Benefit Kitchen to simplify the rules of
these complex systems and give families a chance to
plan their own financial futures.”
So, got a big idea in civic tech? Try designing a bigtime
app — you might make it big at Brooklyn Borough
Hall!
Photo Credit: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP’s Office
Borough President Adams spoke with Melanie
Lavelle, co-creator of Benefit Kitchen, as they
screened local families at St. John’s Bread and Life,
a food pantry in Bedford-Stuyvesant that is one of a
number of locations where less tech-savvy Brooklynites
will be able to get assistance through their
partnership; in the background is a screenshot of
the financial literacy tool.
Photo Credit: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP’s Office
Holding up a heat sensor deployed by Heat Seek NYC, Borough President Adams joined impacted tenants
and housing lawyers outside 178 Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville as they announced a lawsuit based
on data from an expanding technology partnership to monitor heating-related harassment in Brooklyn
apartment buildings.
BROOKLYN NEWS