The Refugee Connect team formed to explore the potential of government databases for Refugees Welcome.
Refugees Welcome
Refugees Welcome Australia is a not-for-profit organisation that matches refugees with homeowners with spare rooms.
Refugees Welcome began in Germany when a group of concerned citizens tried to persuade homeowners to take refugees into their own homes. Despite huge media and funding support and offers by thousands of homeowners, only 345 refugees were eventually housed. In the meantime, other countries asked Refugees Welcome for their operational methods, and Refugees Welcome Australia was set up.
Due to lack of support from other NGOs and government, the only branch in Australia actively seeking to house refugees has been Brisbane. After hundreds of hours of volunteer work by a large volunteer force, only a handful of refugees have obtained temporary accommodation.
Concerned with how hugely resource-intensive the information gathering is, Refugees Welcome South Australia attended Techfugees 2017 with the intention of designing an app to help match refugees (guests) with homeowners (hosts), to make the process more private for both parties, more streamlined, and much more efficient. Unfortunately the judges took the view that the project was too ambitious, or, as one of the judges put it, “If AirBnB can’t do it, what makes you think you can?”
This highlights the main problem with asking people to house strangers for free. People with spare rooms know they can receive income from AirBnB for their rooms and have little incentive, except compassion, to forgo that income.
The solution that Refugees Welcome South Australia has devised, is to facilitate the making of an agreement between the refugee and the host whereby the refugee provides 15 hours of work per week in exchange for room and board. The agreement is to be negotiated by both sides (anonymously at first) and set out in the app, to protect both parties.
Refugee Connect project
Refugee Connect has created interactive maps for the Refugees Welcome app so it begins by presenting a heat map of Australia showing where refugees live. Interested users can click on the map and find the location of refugees by combinations of language, religion and country of origin.
A second map shows the number of people with spare rooms in Australia, and, making justifiable assumptions, shows the services they would be expected to most value, such as childcare, aged care, gardening and general duties.
The maps start refugees and hosts along the path of choosing each other, but also are intended to be valuable public informational resources which raise awareness of the Refugee Welcome scheme.
Refugees Welcome
Refugees Welcome Australia is a not-for-profit organisation that matches refugees with homeowners with spare rooms.
Refugees Welcome began in Germany when a group of concerned citizens tried to persuade homeowners to take refugees into their own homes. Despite huge media and funding support and offers by thousands of homeowners, only 345 refugees were eventually housed. In the meantime, other countries asked Refugees Welcome for their operational methods, and Refugees Welcome Australia was set up.
Due to lack of support from other NGOs and government, the only branch in Australia actively seeking to house refugees has been Brisbane. After hundreds of hours of volunteer work by a large volunteer force, only a handful of refugees have obtained temporary accommodation.
Concerned with how hugely resource-intensive the information gathering is, Refugees Welcome South Australia attended Techfugees 2017 with the intention of designing an app to help match refugees (guests) with homeowners (hosts), to make the process more private for both parties, more streamlined, and much more efficient. Unfortunately the judges took the view that the project was too ambitious, or, as one of the judges put it, “If AirBnB can’t do it, what makes you think you can?”
This highlights the main problem with asking people to house strangers for free. People with spare rooms know they can receive income from AirBnB for their rooms and have little incentive, except compassion, to forgo that income.
The solution that Refugees Welcome South Australia has devised, is to facilitate the making of an agreement between the refugee and the host whereby the refugee provides 15 hours of work per week in exchange for room and board. The agreement is to be negotiated by both sides (anonymously at first) and set out in the app, to protect both parties.
Refugee Connect project
Refugee Connect has created interactive maps for the Refugees Welcome app so it begins by presenting a heat map of Australia showing where refugees live. Interested users can click on the map and find the location of refugees by combinations of language, religion and country of origin.
A second map shows the number of people with spare rooms in Australia, and, making justifiable assumptions, shows the services they would be expected to most value, such as childcare, aged care, gardening and general duties.
The maps start refugees and hosts along the path of choosing each other, but also are intended to be valuable public informational resources which raise awareness of the Refugee Welcome scheme.
Award submissions
BOUNTY: .tech / .space
Our website completely created during GovHack is www.refugeeconnect.space and our team name is Refugee Connect.
INTO THE NEW hack
- Refugee Connect is the first resource in Australia where census data about refugees is depicted on maps. It is a useful resource for refugees deciding where to settle and also for citizens wishing to learn more about their neighbours. We hope that in providing this information as a general resource, citizens will become familiar with it and with the idea that they have the opportunity to provide accommodation to refugees.
- Refugee Connect combines disparate datasets in a new way to draw inferences about potential hosts:
- people with homes with more than 4 bedrooms are assumed to have gardens
- aged persons are assumed to be likely to value aged care
- families with young children are assumed to value child care
- single people living alone are assumed to value general duties
This innovative interpretation of the information is also useful for governments and NGOs identifying community needs.
In creating and making public datasets which are formatted uniformly and available without copyright restrictions, the government is providing a valuable asset to citizens and showing its awareness of citizen’s needs in the new world.
Marketplaces hack
As explained above, Refugee Connect has created interactive maps for Refugees Welcome to help them negotiate accommodation and board with members of the public in exchange for services.
A series of safeguards, such as police checks paid for by Refugees Welcome, social worker-mediated meetings, home visits with checklists including insurance, a review system providing feedback on both guests and hosts, and records kept electronically, is designed to build trust in both hosts and guests.
Incentives to participate are awards (from donors) to outstanding hosts and guests, and media announcements and articles.
This new system of exchange enables refugees to gain accommodation with people who value their contribution and do not exploit them, thereby consolidating their worth in the community. It provides services to people who need them but may not be able to pay cash for them, such as aged care, child care, gardening and general duties.
Refugees Welcome hope that data analysis by Refugee Connect, the team created at GovHack 2017, will:
- lead to the publication of a free, appealing information resource (an interactive map showing refugees in Australia and their different census characteristics), which can lead users into exploring the new exchange scheme
- provide an interactive map showing spare bedrooms in Australia and the types of services their owners might be expected to value, leading refugees to consider offering services in exchange for accommodation.
Social hack
Currently, an increasing number of people seeking asylum living in our communities are without any access to housing and support systems. Research indicates more and more people will be without work rights and cut off support in 2017 and 2018.
When we asked potential hosts what type of questions they would like to ask potential guests, we received a number of suggestions. When we asked a refugee what he would like to know, he said he only wanted one thing: a safe home.
Prompt provision of safe housing results in reduction in social costs such as mental health care costs and crime.
http://www.sheltersa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/Dorcas-Final-report.pdf
Refugees are part of our society and when they cannot find safe accommodation, our social capital drops. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Social capital is conceived as a resource available to individuals and communities, and founded on networks of mutual support, reciprocity and trust. Research links strong social capital to increased individual and community wellbeing.” General Social Survey: Summary Results, Australia, 2014 http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/C6BF68E57D3A308CCA256E21007686F8?Opendocument
At the same time, the volunteering rate is declining in Australia and there are fewer people providing home maintenance jobs, gardening, running errands and unpaid child care. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/C6BF68E57D3A308CCA256E21007686F8?Opendocument
The Refugees Welcome solution, created with the support of Refugee Connect, of matching refugees with homeowners with spare bedrooms, will improve the social inclusion of both parties. It is expected to disproportionately help aged people, single mothers, and disabled people who can provide a room they own or rent for urgently needed help. This would enable aged people to stay longer in their homes, reduce the stress on single mothers improving their children’s security and a better chance of reaching their potential, and allow disabled people to lead fuller, more satisfying lives.
The refugee would develop a network much faster this way, and would be expected to start participating in civic and political groups sooner. With the refugee having a level of control over the issue most important to him/her/them, that is, their accommodation, they would gain trust and trustworthiness sooner.
Instead of witnessing refugees expend energy and time in the search for the basic necessities of room and board, people would benefit from opening up their homes to them and the whole community would be more sustainable.
Best Entry from South Australia
As explained under Social Hack, Refugees Connect, who are providing database support for Refugees Welcome, are addressing the needs of the South Australian community by helping guide refugees to the state best suited to them in terms of refugee companionship, and find safe homes in the community to hasten their assimilation into the community.
8-10% of migrants are humanitarian arrivals. The total humanitarian acceptance in 2016 was 26,000 of which approximately 2,400 came to South Australia (http://www.sheltersa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/Dorcas-Final-report.pdf)
In 2016, South Australia permanently settled 1,855 refugees. (http://data.gov.au/dataset/8d1b90a9-a4d7-4b10-ad6a-8273722c8628/resource/27adc111-5296-4dc4-884f-3cfbc33b02f3/download/historical-settlement-reports.zip)
Therefore we estimate over 400 refugees remain homeless for that year alone.
Refugee Connect and Refugees Welcome South Australia will enable the South Australian government to
- advertise South Australia as a socially just state, promoting cultural diversity, respecting human rights and recognising the dignity of each individual
- advertise South Australia to tourists as safe and strongly supportive of the homeless
- make South Australia an attractive tourist destination for a broader range of countries
- be recognised as innovative leader of social experiment
- be the provider of free app which will enhance the efficiency and efficacy of other housing service providers
Refugees may need support for the first few years, but those starting a new life are often driven and loyal to their new country, typically work hard and contribute a lot to the economy in future years. The largest numbers settle in culturally diverse metropolitan areas, but many also settle in regional areas where they are desperately needed. (http://blog.id.com.au/2015/population/demographic-trends/how-many-refugees-does-australia-take/)
As outlined under Marketplaces Hack, Refugees Connect and Refugees Welcome are proposing to venture into the SHARE economy to help refugees exchange services in return for food and accommodation.
The economic benefits for South Australia are two-fold. Firstly, the refugees would no longer need housing support from the government nor government-funded NGOs. Secondly, the homeowners’ economic circumstances would improve because they are receiving help they would otherwise have had to pay for, or forgone altogether. This would help keep their high quality of life affordable.
The main app is replicable and can be provided for free to other legitimate service providers so that the model can be extended to other homeless groups. Testing would need to be done, but probably the app would need only minor modifications to apply to every homeless person, for example requiring more information to help mentally challenged individuals as well as changing the terminology and societal advertising.