Product: Spare Project Impact Statement

[kimberlyvaldez07]

Overview

We need to create an impact statement so that people can understand what the original intent and lessons learned from this project.

Details

Spare Project status is changing to closed and will remain visible on the HfLA Projects page.

Action Items

• Review the notes section and the example below and create a draft
• Review draft with Product team
• Once approved, create a new issue for dev to add it to the project's md file

Resources/Instructions

• https://www.hackforla.org/projects/spare
• This project has another issue to change the description of the project Update Project Profile: Spare #8752
  • New Description: The Spare project was designed to explore the viability building a software application to connect people in need of clothing and other essentials with community members who have items to give. The software application would have facilitated direct, one-on-one exchanges to foster connections between housed and unhoused community members.
• There will be another issue to change the status to Closed (its being written right now)

Notes and Example

• Example: https://www.hackforla.org/projects/311-data

  • Description: The 311 Data project seeks to empower local Neighborhood Councils to improve the ideation and analysis of their initiatives using the wealth of publicly available 311 data.
  • Value
    • Problem: The city produces a data set from all the 311 tickets placed. This data is useful if you are a data scientist, but for citizens without this training it has little value.
      Solution: We partnered with the Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment and LA Neighborhood Councils to co-create and iterate analysis and tools (see 311-Data.org) to provide neighborhoods with actionable information at the local level through real time visualizations and comparison tools.
    • Impact: Neighborhood Councils are able to use visualizations to demonstrate and discuss the city service levels with constituents and determine where to send mailings to target information to those parts of their community not availing themselves of specific city services.

• Notes

  • This project intended to connect people in need of clothing and other essentials with people in the community who have things to spare.
  • This turned out to be unfeasible because of insurance requirements and high potential for unintended interactions

[github-actions]

Hi @kimberlyvaldez07.

Please don't forget to add the proper labels to this issue. Currently, the labels for the following are missing:

• Complexity, Role, Feature, Size

NOTE: Please ignore this comment if you do not have 'write' access to this directory.

To add a label, take a look at Github's documentation here.

Also, don't forget to remove the "missing labels" afterwards.
To remove a label, the process is similar to adding a label, but you select a currently added label to remove it.

After the proper labels are added, the merge team will review the issue and add a "Ready for Prioritization" label once it is ready for prioritization.

Additional Resources:

• Wiki: How to create issues
• Wiki: How to read and interpret labels

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Short Option

Value

Problem: People experiencing homelessness or other hardships need essential items, while community members often have usable items they are willing to give away.

Solution: Spare explored an application that would connect people who need essential items directly with people who have items to give.

Impact: The team identified safety, liability, and insurance barriers that made direct person-to-person exchanges not feasible for Hack for LA to implement, providing useful insight into the constraints of this approach.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Longer option

Value

Problem: People experiencing homelessness or other hardships often need clothing and other essential items, while community members may have usable items they are willing to give away. Existing donation models do not necessarily provide a way for these individuals to connect directly with one another.

Solution: The Spare project explored the viability of a software application that would connect people who need clothing and other essentials directly with community members who have items to give, facilitating one-on-one exchanges and potentially fostering connections between housed and unhoused community members.

Impact: Through exploration of the concept, the team identified significant barriers to safely implementing direct exchanges between individuals, including insurance requirements and the potential for unintended or unsafe interactions. These findings demonstrated that the proposed model was not feasible for Hack for LA to implement and provided valuable insight into the safety, liability, and operational considerations that should be addressed when designing technology to facilitate direct exchanges between community members.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

These are the SDGs that would apply to this project

All Possible:

SDG 1 – No Poverty, Target 1.2: By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
Why it applies: Spare was intended to address one dimension of material poverty by helping people experiencing homelessness or other hardships obtain clothing and other essential items.

SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities, Target 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.
Why it applies: In addition to facilitating access to needed items, Spare was intended to foster direct connections between housed and unhoused community members, supporting social inclusion across economic and housing circumstances.

SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, Target 12.5: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
Why it applies: Spare was designed to facilitate the reuse of clothing and other usable items by connecting people who had items to give with people who needed them.

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We are going to use 10.4 as the primary

• updated HfLA: Projects: SDG and Targets