Hack Housing: HUD’s First Hackathon Helps Develop Housing-Related Apps

Hack Housing: HUD’s First Hackathon Helps Develop Housing-Related Apps

Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation, and Monitoring. Whether it’s providing policymakers with the information they need to target assistance in the wake of a natural disaster or developing solid evidence about what works, the mission of the Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) is the same: we deliver knowledge to help policymakers, program managers, and consumers make decisions and improve lives. This practical, action-oriented approach makes close interaction with other researchers, program managers, subject-matter experts, and users of our services absolutely essential. PD&R’s “Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions — A Weekend Hackathon” is a prime example of the kind of hands-on, meaningful work our talented staff engage in on a daily basis. This story by Robert Renner illustrates what can happen when a diverse group of people with a common purpose come together over a weekend to solve a specific problem. This event is the culmination of months of work to refine the problem, gather enormous amounts of data, and assemble the right cast of characters. But it’s also a beginning; the launching of ideas and the furthering of relationships developed at the Hackathon.

One Friday evening, several hundred software developers, local affordable housing providers, and housing subject-matter experts crammed into a room on the 31st floor of a Seattle office building to kick off an event called “Hack Housing: Empowering Smarter Decisions — A Weekend Hackathon.” A hackathon (also referred to as a hack day, hackfest, or codeathon) is an event during which software developers collaborate intensely over a short period — anywhere from several hours to several days — usually with a goal of producing a usable application. Hackathons are typically focused on a specific theme. In some cases the theme is a technical one, focusing on a specific programming language, application programming interface (API), or framework. In other cases the theme focuses on a specific social cause or purpose. More recently, hackathons have been used to further the causes of the Open Government and Open Data movements, both of which seek to enable greater transparency, participation, and collaboration among the government, private, and public sectors. The White House has already hosted at least two hackathons and has helped organize and promote others, including the Hack Housing event.

After a brief interview with Zillow cofounder Rich Barton and former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer Nick Sinai, both of whom extolled the benefits of Open Data, and a passionate overview of Seattle’s affordable housing issues by Lisa Wolters of the Seattle Housing Authority, the hackathon participants spent the rest of the evening networking and forming teams to take on the Hack Housing challenge: coming up with creative solutions to help first-time homebuyers, low-income renters, and senior citizens find a home that meets their needs. What was the motivation for the participants to spend a weekend locked up in the Zillow tower, furiously programming? Was it the satisfaction that comes from civic engagement? The possibility of impressing a potential employer? Perhaps it was the cash prizes: $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place, and $3,000 for third place. Or maybe they were doing it for fun. Whatever the motivation, the buzz in the room was palpable as the participants geared up for a weekend of coding.

Saturday morning began with HUD subject-matter experts familiarizing participants with the datasets and APIs that were created specifically for the event. HUD developed a GitHub website to serve as one-stop shop for Hack Housing participants to access orientation materials, HUD datasets and APIs, documentation, and code samples. HUD used ArcGIS Open Data, a cloud-based platform by Esri, to rapidly share data in multiple open formats through one common geospatial API. Throughout the day and well into the night, subject-matter experts offered the project teams guidance on a variety of issues including the interpretation of census and housing data, interaction with the APIs, and federal subsidized housing program rules. HUD’s team of subject-matter experts were assisted by their counterparts from the U.S. Census Bureau, Zillow, and Socrata, a Seattle-based firm dedicated to making it easier for public-sector organizations to share their data.

After the dust had settled on Sunday, Tim Lebell, Jake Grajewski, and David Puerto walked away with the $10,000 first-place prize for SmartMove, an app that highlights housing opportunities based on their proximity to the user’s most-visited locations, such as a workplace, the grocery store, or other places critical to daily life. In all, participants presented 30 solutions to the audience and judges; the ideas included a social network that helps people find accommodating roommates; software that calculates the return on investment for landlords interested in offering space to low-income renters; and a tool that lets users filter available housing based on specific accessibility requirements such as ramped entryways, wide doorways, or grab bars in the bathroom.

Even if none of the solutions developed over the weekend ever make it to market, the Hack Housing event would be a success. Hack Housing marked the first time that Zillow and HUD had ever hosted or participated in a hackathon. The event offered HUD the opportunity to generate public awareness of its Open Data offerings and provided a context in which Seattle’s tech community, affordable housing providers, and advocates could meet and interact. HUD also used the opportunity to gather feedback from the developer community on the design, content, and general usability of its Open Data and API platforms. The event continues to garner attention from developer and Open Data communities, and HUD is already fielding requests to participate in future hackathons. The experience gained from this event will undoubtedly inform and improve the quality of future hackathons.

Acknowledgments

Shula Markland of HUD’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) worked persistently to make sure that the hackathon — which arose out of a conversation following an Open Data meeting at the White House — actually became a reality. Markland brought together a diverse group of HUD program area experts to propose the problem statements that would ultimately become the focus of the event. PD&R, specifically the eGIS team, played a key role in identifying the HUD datasets relevant to the problem statements and quickly setting up an Open Data portal to make the data available for the event. The HUD team of subject-matter experts attending the event included Markland, Sean Turner (OCIO), Robert Renner (PD&R), Josh Geyer (Office of Community Planning and Development), and Connor McDonnell (Office of Field Policy and Management), who provided the hackathon participants with critical guidance.