SW Detroit Support
{"title": "SW Detroit Support", "website": "https://swdetroit.info/", "createdAt": 1744772305641, "userGithub": "sanchece", "credentials": {}, "description": "Frontend: https://github.com/sanchece/flood_support_app\nBackend: https://github.com/sanchece/flood_support_backend\n\nThe Problem:\n\nOn February 17, 2025 a 54-inch a main water pipe busted in Southwest Detroit flooding cars, basements, and some main levels of homes - impacting about 400 houses and hundreds of residents. These conditions forced many residents to displace and were supported with housing assistance provided by the City of Detroit. During this crisis the local community came together to support one another. Many local orgs like DHDC, SDBA, UNI, Santos Church, Vamonos, La SED, GLS, SW Pride, City of Detroit, local residents, and others joined to provide various forms of relief like food, shelter, services, supplies, and info. These resources were promoted via different mediums including social media posts/stories, SMS chains, websites and overwhelming amounts of door knockings.\n\nAbout 10 days after the incident I believed that it might be helpful to centralize this information into a single location. I started building a web app using Node, Express, React tech stacks. Very immature in the development I encountered Graft Living Studios - a local organization that shared the same vision to centralize information - who had already started the data collection process and were sharing creative infographics to help communicate the network of available resources to the community. GLS and I connected; motivated by the same cause, we decided to collaborate to develop a full stack web application.\n\nThe App:\n\nThe SW Flood Support App is a community tool to help communicate a network of un-centralized resources to the community - in one location swdetroit.info. It aims to be a genuine & real-time data-storytelling tool that connects 1) impacted residents to 2) SW Detroit resources to 3) the public. The goal is to facilitate the flow of resources bidirectionally in our local community to provide a more efficient relief to this crisis and others to come. It was and continues to be designed and developed 100% by local volunteers.\n\nThe current state of the app is made up of a human-friendly frontend interface whose data is powered by an backend API and central data source. The frontend features a warm human-friendly design, dynamic data filtering, multi-functional table, responsive map, and Spanish translation button. The API contains routes that trigger different data flows and processing, leveraging libraries like an open source translator and Google Sheets API to store and cache the data that powers the frontend app. It was important for us to also embed Spanish translation functionality considering a large Spanish-speaking demographic in the area. Without having to manually duplicate data we were able to leverage an open source library to help us with that.\n\nTomorrow:\n\nWith the goal to provide immediate relief for the current crisis, the app was developed and deployed within a few weeks. The expedited launch constrained some development for the tool, however we continue to explore enhancement ideas. One of our current goals is to improve the real-time data feature by improving the data-entry process (as it is currently manually maintained). We're exploring methods including developing a protected GUI route to enable collaborative data-collection or leverage other modern technologies to automatically scrape the information into our data source, or hybrid of the two. We are also cleverly adapting the tech-stack to support normal-state community resource distribution, outside of emergency situations. \nReferences:\n* https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/03/27/recovery-efforts-in-detroit-neighborhood-flooded-by-main-break-nearly-complete-what-happens-next/#:~:text=The%2054%2Dinch%20water%20main,up%20to%20the%20first%20floor.\n\n* https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2025/04/07/community-groups-residents-mobilize-for-water-main-flood-victims/82876257007/"}