Helping homeless seniors to keep their documents safe at homeless shelters.

PROBLEM

New York city's ranks as the topmost city in the United States for the growing homeless population. There was an increase of 4 percent of the homeless in the year 2017, according to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report.

Senior homeless people tend to be at risk because when they are allowed to get into transitional housing but they do not have the necessary documents.

INTERVENTION:

A poster that acts as a reminder to the senior homeless citizens to check out their documents while they are leaving the shelter at the places where they require their papers records. And once they are back check-in their documents where they can deposit their paper records, so they are safe with the caseworkers at the homeless shelters.

RESEARCH

Understanding homeless ecosystem

Our team of designers first developed a stakeholder and their influence to identify the specific age group of the homeless population to focus on. We also did a block-building game as a medium to start conversations with the homeless population at the Union Square Market.

Since it was difficult to get a committed group of the homeless population at Union Square and also hard to recognize if people are homeless or panhandlers, we collaborated with The Valley Lodge.

For our initial research, we conducted:

1. Building blocks probes with the residents to understand the reasons they think lead to homelessness.

2. Interviews with 10 senior homeless residents at the Valley Lodge to understand their pain points and 5 caseworkers, chef, and other management staff to understand the pain points of the residents through their lens why homeless seniors are unable to get into transitional housing.

3. Sharing stories to understand each resident’s problem better and co-creating solutions together along with the staff.

Understanding the gap and pain points through storyboard activity when they go for interviews for permanent housing from the shelter through.

DESIGN PROCESS:

Through the process of our research, we discovered that there is a lack of trust between all stakeholders – homeless residents at the valley lodge, staff members, and caseworkers. Lack of trust means all of them have different understandings, perspectives, and challenges.

These findings helped us inform our solution for the homeless seniors as well as the staff at the valley lodge. The staff could help the seniors to find transitional housing more efficiently and register them on the government postal. And the seniors will be able to get a reminder that they have to check in their documents at the registration and check out while they are going for any interviews of transitional housing.

Through these themes, we designed various ideas that would be convenient for both the stakeholder. A poster that could be pasted in the corridor, bathroom door when the residents are getting ready, and entrance.

Skills Used

• Ethnographic Research

• Stakeholder Mapping

• In-depth Interviews

• Story Boarding

• Concept Development

• Prototyping