Experience Design + Art Direction

The Ask

Create an interactive experience to eradicate homelessness in Richmond, Virginia. 

Research

A variety of research methodologies informed the design process; used a combination of empirical, primary, and secondary research to help provide a complete picture of homelessness nationally and the city of Richmond.

Primary Research

Interviews were conducted with people of all types of backgrounds from social services to landlords. 
 
The following people were interviewed:
Alyssa Bickford :: Social work master's candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University
Tom Bannard :: Shelter Operations Manager for CARITAS (1)
Erika Schmale :: Homeward's Regional Coalition Manager (2)
Garrett Lyon :: Richmond,VA landlord
& A few other landlords that wished to be anonymous. 

1. CARITAS provides effective, permanent solutions to individuals and families dealing with the crisis of homelessness and/or addiction in the Metro Richmond area.
2. Homeward is the planning and coordinating organization for homeless services in the greater Richmond region.

Secondary Research

1. Watched documentaries and read scholarly articles and case studies.

2. Evaluated solution strategies across in the United States attempting to eradicate homelessness

3. Researched how other cities were eradicating homelessness with the use of technology

The Solution

It became clear that the solution to end homelessness was homes before jobs (a.k.a rapid rehousing). 
Rapid rehousing wasn't new. It was being implemented and successful.

Except there was a problem.

There weren't enough landlords who were part of the solution; therefore there weren't enough homes. 

And that didn't make sense to us because according to the city's database there were over 11,000 vacant rental properties and less than 900 documented homeless people.

More importantly Rapid rehousing had a proven 97% success rate.

Vacant rental properties outnumbered the total number of homeless people in Richmond.

Websites already existed for rapid rehousing and landlords.

However, we needed to increase the number of landlords involved. 

The Solution was a Rapid Re-housing Website that:

1. Empowered the community with information to end homelessness

2. Simplified the process for landlords to take part in rapid rehousing

3. Made it easy to share the solution socially

User Personas

Landlord Paul

Paul Russell is a 52 year old landlord in Richmond. Having grown up in the Church Hill neighborhood, Paul has lived in this city all of his life, and has seen significant changes in the cultural landscape of the neighborhoods here. He has relationships with and in some cases even went to grade school with many of the local business owners on the block where he lives, and where a big portion of his rental properties are. While he inherited part of his substantial wealth, he is a hard worker and grew his finances methodically and responsibly through small business endeavors starting at a young age. As a fairly young and successful man, he recognized his connection to the neighborhood and decided it made sense to invest, financially and culturally in the place that had always been his home. He started buying real estate around Richmond as soon as he could afford to, works hard managing them, and has made a comfortable living doing so.

He is married to a woman who is not ashamed to reap the benefits of the comfortable lifestyle which she has been afforded. She always has a new Mercedes, and plays an impossible amount of tennis. Her relationship with their adopted 14-year-old son seems friendly, if a bit unnatural. Paul clearly enjoys the obvious and fun parts of parenting such as tossing the old ball around or teaching junior about the inner workings of his ostentatious classic car collection, but otherwise maintains a strangely safe distance with the boy, who attends an exclusive boarding school.

Because of his entitled outlook, (he has worked hard his whole life for his money, why should it be different for anyone else?) as well as the substantial gentrification he has witnessed first hand in his own neighborhood, Paul has little empathy for those struggling with unemployment, poverty, and certainly homelessness. An element of racism could be a factor as well, having experienced several iterations of unsavory neighbors and illicit activity around his family’s home. The best properties to rent from Paul are the ones on the same block where he lives in a large house with his small family. He clearly has a vested interest in the quality of life on his own street, and is most responsible about maintaining these properties. The properties that are elsewhere in the city: not as much. He owns lots of property in the city, (if pressed to reveal exactly how much, he can’t or won’t give you a straight answer) including businesses large and small, and many rental properties ranging from one bedroom efficiency apartments to full single family houses, to individual units within larger apartment complexes. He spends his days tinkering in his warehouse full of home maintenance and repair tools (toys?), his collection of antique racing cars, and milling about the neighborhood on his tractor, fixing things will tools bigger and more expensive than are needed for the job. (He can frequently be found riding down the street on his own cherry picker crane.)

Paul has never taken part in a program to house the under-privileged, doesn’t see why it should be his responsibility to do so, and even falsely justifies his position by citing “the safety of his family.”

Landlord Marie

Marie is a 57-year-old Italian-American. She moved to Richmond from Philadelphia 27 years ago to stay close to her college-bound daughter Noelle, now 27. Marie is a single mother that works hard. She put her daughter through school and continues to help her whenever she can, even if it’s just with a hot, home-cooked meal. Marie began her career as a secretary for a local real estate agency and ascended through the ranks as first a Marketing Manager and later as a full-fledged agent. Marie enjoys this line of work, because she knows that you can get out of it exactly what you put into it; working hard pays off. Marie has worked hard her entire life to save up to purchase rental properties. She currently owns two houses in Church Hill that she rents out to graduate students, young professionals and young families; Marie has owned the homes for 7 years and 2 years respectively. She has heard vaguely about CARITAS and the Rapid Re-Housing program in the past, but she doesn’t know all that much about it. Marie doesn’t have a lot of savings to rely on if things don’t go well with her landlord business. She needs stable streams of income from those two properties with minimal effort; she still works as a real estate agent full-time.

Marie’s friends describe her as outgoing and caring. She is an active member of her book club, and they meet every Thursday evening. She drives a Ford Escape, and her favorite television shows to watch are HGTV’s “Property Brothers” and AMC’s “The Walking Dead”. She watches the Eagles play every chance she can get; she is a die-hard Philadelphia sports fan. She lives with her dog, Cassie, a Corgi, and enjoys taking her for long, slow walks through Byrd Park. Marie lives on the West side of Maymont Park. Marie uses her email often, but she prefers calling people on the phone to chat. She uses her cell phone, an iPhone 5, but she still has a landline as well. She recently got into Pinterest, and enjoys browsing the Home Decor and DIY sections. In anticipation of Noelle’s wedding to her fiancé next fall, Marie has been looking more and more at event planning through this app.

Landlord Benjamin

Benjamin is in his early thirties. He is the heir of a restaurant franchise, and is about to ask his current girlfriend to marry him this weekend. Ben feels like he ready to start a family, and realizes wants to start the next phase of his life. Because of his success, Ben bought in his late twenties fifteen apartments in Richmond,Virginia. A close friend of his, Joel, works as
a case manager at Caritas, a city of Richmond nonprofit that helps place homeless families in homes. Last year Joel convinced Ben to partake in his work’s homeless program and place a family in one of his apartments. Ben agreed because of the tax incentive and to help out his good friend. Quickly Joel placed a family in Benjamin’s apartment, the family turned out to be terrible tenants and destroyed most of the property and broke the lease early. Benjamin lost a lot of money and time repairing the property to get it ready for the next tenant. Ben has been ignoring Joel’s phone calls because he doesn’t know if he can handle another tenant like the last one. It has left a bad taste in his mouth, but he also wants to help out Joel. More importantly, he hasn’t been able to tell his friend that he is about to propose to his future wife.

Other details about Ben: He has to have the newest and best technology available at all times, even if he doesn’t understand it. Ben owns a BMW and a Ducati motorcycle. His parents are no longer living, but he has a sister that lives out of state in California. He visits her and his uncles and aunts for the holidays. Over the past year, he has focused on his relationship with his girlfriend and has been going to her family’s get togethers.

In his early twenties, Ben went to college at Virginia Tech. His parents tragically died in a house fire while asleep.

Case Manager Susan

Susan Maize is a 26-year-old case-worker employed by the Daily Planet, a wellness clinic dedicated to supporting the homeless community in Richmond. She was raised in nearby Norfolk, and came to Richmond 8 years ago to attend VCU, where she developed a passionate empathy toward the members of her community who were struggling with hunger, poverty, homelessness, or all three. She loves animals (sometimes more than people; they are “more trustworthy.”) She has never earned a large paycheck at her jobs, never expects to, and recognizes that helping people is its own reward. While she has experienced some scary things in her job as a case-worker, up to and including being physically assaulted, the simple and enduring feeling of having improved somebody’s life makes the trying work worth it to her.

Susan is in a long term mixed race relationship, and lives with her black boyfriend who works as a waiter in a local restaurant. Together, they have 2 cats and a dog. They have no children together, but her boyfriend Alan has a 4-year-old son from a former relationship, and Susan enjoys spending time with him.

She credits her family with providing her with her quality of life, humble to some, but she is very thankful for all she has. Her younger brother suffers from mild autism and she is therefore very sensitive to the plight of the mentally disabled, who comprise a large percentage of her clients. While she is dedicated to helping people and building pride and a sense of community in Richmond, Susan also enjoys going to bars on the weekends, having some drinks, and relaxing with her fairly large group of friends.

Wireframes

These wireframes were made in Omnigraffle and later pulled into InVision. 

Usability Testing

Usability testing using Invision directed the design path, user experience, content, and copy. Here are two video recordings with key takeaways (other examples with documentation may be provided).

Alyssa Brickford- Social Worker

Didn’t know there were that many vacant buildings in Richmond

Found the three side of the website confusing

It was hard to find social media and other sharing tools

Really liked the story the site told

There should be more research on landlords and owners in the social work abstracts on the school’s library website

Garrett Lyon- Landlord

The installation sketch on the homepage might be confused with rapid re-housing for those who don’t know what it is yet

Definition of rapid re-housing is too long yet does not give enough of the important information for landlords

Doesn’t see the benefits for him as a landlord enough

Exercise ruthless exclusion of information

Thought Maslow’s Hierarchy reference was important, informative and moving

Does not fit into the user buckets (i.e. tenant, landlord, owner) and recommends only including tenant and owner as options

Color and Typography

NoVacancyRVA.com

The final version of the website was made in Bootstrap and handed off to Homeward. 

Results

At first, this was a master's degree student project at VCU Brandcenter.
It was meant to be theoretical. 

We felt a personal obligation to give back to the community and go beyond the assignment's ask.
So, we executed our solution.

As of now, Richmond's Homeward is using NoVacancyRVA.com. 
We are grateful to have been a part of their mission. 

Credits

I worked with two other amazing Experience Designers on this project; Mikaila Weaver and Pete Davies. Mikaila and Pete supported the #NoVacancyRVA movement with research, the in-person interactive experience, logo design, and videography. I couldn't have completed the website without our collaboration.

Tools

Pencil + Paper

Adobe Creative Suite

Wordpress to Bootstrap Development

InVision

Qualitative Research

HMU! 

Want to tell me about a new project or network?

I am always up to grab a cup of tea in Seattle and surrounding area. 

Not nearby? That is okay! Email me and we can setup something virtual.

© Made with  by Heather Keller