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ECHOLocator
Map of monthly two-bedroom rents by zip code | ECHOLocator in partnership with Sasaki
Housing, Mobility
Nicholas Kelly, Anson Stewart, Robert Terrell
2018 Design Grants
The ECHOLocator project—ECHO stands for Expanding Choice in Housing Opportunities—is a new digital tool in development to help improve information on neighborhoods available to low-income families in Massachusetts. Motivated by research that neighborhoods can profoundly affect the outcomes of low-income children, this tool is inspired by the idea that improved information on neighborhoods can help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
Evidence has never been stronger in support of the fact that where individuals grow up strongly affects their life opportunities. The housing choice voucher program provides subsidies to five million Americans and represents a powerful, yet mostly untapped, mechanism for reducing inequality by enabling low-income individuals to access neighborhoods that provide increased opportunities for their children. However, voucher holders are frequently barred from doing so due to unaffordable rents, expensive or nonexistent transit, informational shortfalls, and a rightful desire to remain connected to their communities.
Designed in conjunction with MIT, the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), and Conveyal, the ECHOLocator uses the latest in transportation analytics in combination with cutting edge data on neighborhoods to help low-income families using housing choice vouchers navigate neighborhoods within Boston and the Greater Boston area. As the first housing search tool of its kind, the ECHOLocator will hopefully provide a new interdisciplinary platform for other housing authorities to adopt in order to empower low-income families across the state and across the country.
The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) provides affordable housing to more than 58,000 residents in and around the City of Boston. Residents are assisted through a combination of public housing and federal and state voucher subsidy programs that provide a wide variety of housing opportunities. As the largest public housing authority in New England, the BHA houses close to nine percent of the city’s residents.
The BHA’s mission is to provide stable, quality affordable housing for low and moderate income persons; to deliver these services with integrity and mutual accountability; and to create healthy living environments which serve as catalysts for the transformation from dependency to economic self-sufficiency.
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