Helping Hand

An Android App designed to help the homeless population, specifically in London, Ontario

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Inspiration

A substantial portion of the London population suffers from homelessness, and one of the core issues these people face is food insecurity. Those who are homeless do not always feel safe or welcome at shelters, and have limited money to provide themselves with adequate food, causing them to resort to begging on the streets. Middle to upper income residents want to help this population, but negative connotations surrounding the homeless often discourage them from doing so, such as questions about how money would be spent if given, and other exogenous factors such as lack of cash on hand. We devised a tech solution to connect these two groups in an easy and convenient way for both parties.

What it does

Our platform is a food delivery service that brings fresh food directly to a hungry homeless person identified by a passerby with the app. These individuals can ping the location of the homeless person, which notifies one of our drivers to bring a meal to that location for the homeless man or woman. The platform is sponsored by impact-oriented organizations focused on alleviating food insecurity and inequality, such as Kellogg’s, the Darden Foundation, and Starbucks. The food procured is considered unsellable by restaurants and grocery stores, which our drivers pick up and package to delivery to the homeless people.

How we built it

Using Android Studio we developed the skeleton of the app using Java for the back-end and xml for the visual. While working in an Agile environment the 4 of us were able to separate this massive project into smaller and doable tasks; two main software developers and two main UI/UX designers. We were able to combine ideas to create an interesting app that we’ve never heard of before and we’re all incredibly proud of ourselves. This app skeleton contains the side bar and registration page on one github repository and the map AI on another. The design of the prototype of this app is presented through slides and made in Illustrator.

What's next for Helping Hand

Expanding to the GTA homeless population is an ideal next step for Helping Hand to tackle. This will be possible by expanding our employee outreach and sponsorship connections.

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