Kommon

As a Impact Entrepreneurship Fellow at the New School, I interviewed fellow students to create a prototype for a housing portal that would facilitate lease takeovers and roommate finding.

I interviewed students on what their short and long term goals were before they moved to New York and started school. I then asked whether or not they were able to achieve these goals and what the biggest challenges were in achieving them.

I found that one of the biggest challenges was housing which impacted their ability to be both physically and mentally present in class. Some struggled to secure housing into the second half of their first semester. One student was sleeping on their friend's couch and almost lost their scholarship due to not being able to meet academic demands and look for housing at the same time.

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I worked on creating a listing prototype that students could use to connect with other students, talk to each other over video, calculate commute times to school, and find housing without having to interact with predatory market presences (from brokers to scammers).

Unfortunately, I had to abandon this venture as my thesis and full-time job became too demanding for me to continue working on it. I still believe students are in need of a tool such as this as there is too much noise out there with facebook groups, apps, websites etc. I believe the universities need to step up and take some of the responsibility for relying on and bringing in so many students from out of state and country. It is undeniable that these two groups bring in more revenue to universities at the cost of putting more demand on the local housing market.