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HelpStays provides the emergency services, e.g. the red cross, UN, doctors without borders etc. access to a database of private accommodation available to their volunteers.
In crisis situations, people often think about victims but they don’t often think about the volunteers.
Volunteers don’t stay in four-star hotels and make everything better overnight. In reality, volunteers often stay in tents, school gyms and hotel lobbies. These accommodations are frequently overcrowded and force the volunteers to leave when there’s still a lot they could do.
Helpstays is an emergency accommodation services registry for approved organisations such as the red cross, the UN, or doctors without borders.
Anyone can login to the Helpstays website to offer available bed(s) on the HelpStays website. All the site requires is your contact details, how many beds you have and how long you would be willing to have a volunteer stay for.
In the event of an emergency, the NGO can look up the affected area to see what homes (and how many beds) are available. The logistics person can call home owners directly to place their volunteers. This gets volunteers out of the tents and gyms and as a result, they are able to stay longer and do more.
Application:
- Cloud hosted (Heroku)
- Ruby on Rails. We're currently looking at using geokit-rails to translate addresses to latitude and longitude.
- Language and platform supported by emergency services management systems. Only legitimate organisations will be given access to ensure that only legitimate volunteers are placed in people's homes.
- Clean database, i.e. minimal administrative need
- The administrator needs to be able to verify organisations (add/remove organisations or edit details)
- Ability to view statistical data:Number of beds are available/pending/taken within an area (For beds taken: which organisation and who is staying in the bed, For beds available: duration of availability; for what type of organisation)
Scope for Product development:
- Tiered service, i.e. organisations able to register: emergency services, community services, e.g. sports teams, interest groups
Ability to access and utilise database:
Ability to register:
- Organisation Information: Name, Services type, Representative contact details, Number of volunteers/members (approximate)
- Registration and secure access must be granted by Helpstays administrator
Information provided:
- Latitude and longitude “search” returning number of houses and number of beds in an area
- Length of stay available for the bed
- Contact details of the home owner
Interaction:
- Mark beds in the database as taken for a timeframe (similar to hotel booking)
- Be able to see which beds are occupied by its volunteers so that bookings can be edited
Website:
Information about how the Homestays process works:
- Register the bed
- Organisation will call you to place a volunteer with you. At this stage you can ask negotiate and decide whether you accept the request.
- If no one calls, then your bed is not needed. To continue to be listed with the site, you will be requested to update the listing annually.
Able to register an available bed
- Input profile information: Name, Phone number, Email Address
- Input accommodation information: Postcode, Number of beds and Number of days willing to provide bed per volunteer
- Input for additional information such as amenities, food etc. and a note field for odd information, e.g. the bed is in an attic and has a stepladder.
(Each accommodation requires separate registration)