Washington, D.C.—Today, Church World Service (CWS) and Refugee Housing Solutions (RHS) celebrate the expansion of their partnership for innovation in refugee housing. A new opportunity with a nonprofit technology platform, ReHome, will further develop a web-based housing search software customized for refugees who arrive through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. When newly arrived refugees face delays in finding safe, secure housing, other urgent steps they are ready to take to rebuild their self-sufficiency can become more difficult. ReHome’s mission is to offer improved systems to streamline the rental process for these refugees and for the landlords who welcome and house them.
CWS, RHS, and ReHome have worked in partnership since the platform’s ideation and creation in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) social impact and innovation ecosystem, where ReHome’s founder, Joseph Landis, completed a graduate degree in city planning. In their newest collaboration, RHS will support ReHome with funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) for the pre-Alpha test development of the ReHome housing search and match platform. Further collaboration with RHS will support further developing the software through its full-release version.
Landis was inspired to create ReHome in response to work experience at his local resettlement agency and the need he saw to more quickly identify and confirm housing matches for resettled refugees. “As my co-founder Zachary Moring and I conducted nationwide field research,” Landis said, “we heard resettled refugees and their supporters across the US echo the urgency of this need.” “We’ve also learned how to transform challenges into opportunities from both sides of local rental markets. Our partnership with CWS and RHS helps us use this knowledge to develop ever-improving services for end users in the refugee housing system.”
CWS notes that the partnership will provide more certainty for new members of American communities by allowing them to focus on finding jobs, enrolling their children in schools, and becoming active participants in their neighborhoods, towns, and cities.
“ReHome is a platform that helps create a potential housing match between both landlord and tenant through an online housing search technology that understands the unique needs of refugee tenants,” said Nathalie Bousamra, CWS Associate Director for Innovation and Strategy on the Refugee Housing Solutions team. “Our RHS team will work with ReHome to promote their platform, which gives rental housing providers smooth connections to tenants in the refugee housing market — in the right places, at the right times.”
ReHome’s first testimonial video, featuring one of 13 families matched by their services so far, is on the platform’s YouTube channel.
Refugee Housing Solutions is a project of Church World Service funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement.
RHS is designed to provide technical assistance and to partner creatively with PRM’s ten national resettlement agencies and 340-plus local offices and affiliates working across the United States to welcome newcomers.
For more information on the new partnership, or how to get involved, contactinfo@refugeehousing.org.