Company
Date Published
Author
Danielle Morrill
Word count
824
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The Homeless Resource Hotline is a toll-free number that provides up-to-date information on available soup kitchens, beds, and other resources for the homeless in downtown Boston. The hotline uses public Google calendars as a data source, making it easy to adopt and maintain. With $500 in Twilio credit, the developers plan to expand the service to New York City and San Francisco, encourage organizations to maintain their own online calendars, and provide Spanish translations using Google Translate. The project was built using Twilio, Google App Engine, and Google Calendar, and took only two days to complete over a weekend.