A new Zillow-backed search tool has its magnifying glass on Seattle’s housing and homelessness crises.
The online tool, developed by Zillow employees partnering with the city’s Office of Housing and local nonprofit organization Housing Connector, will allow nonprofits to match their homeless clients with local owners of affordable housing, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and King County Executive Dow Constantine said last week.
Seattle has struggled with an affordability crisis for years, leading to one of the nation’s largest homeless populations as developers struggle to adequately produce affordable housing in the city. A response to the city’s issues came in the form of Durkan last year launching the Innovation Advisory Council, a group of many of the area’s public and private sector leaders and the source of the new affordable housing search function.
Launched by the city, county and Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce last year, Housing Connector works to find vacant units for homeless people. As of last week, the organization had found homes for 460 individuals and families.
Through Zillow, landlords can upload available housing opportunities and nonprofit service providers can use the platform to find housing for homeless clients. At launch, 35 landlords and 42 nonprofits had access to the function.
Founded by former Microsoft executives in 2005, Seattle-based Zillow provides an online real estate marketplace. It went public in 2011.
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