Project Info
Inspiration
🌟 Homelessness remains a growing and complex challenge across U.S. cities, with over 7,200 individuals experiencing homelessness in San Francisco alone in 2024. Family homelessness has risen by a staggering 94% since 2022. This pressing issue inspired us to create Elevate, a platform that goes beyond traditional solutions, offering a direct, transparent, and human-centered approach to addressing homelessness.
What it does
💡 Elevate is a crowdfunding platform that connects donors with homeless individuals through personalized profiles and storytelling. Sponsors advocate for individuals, raise funds for essential needs, and provide ongoing updates to ensure transparency and accountability, empowering both donors and homeless individuals to create meaningful, lasting change.
How we built it
🔧 Frontend: NextJS, Tailwind CSS, Shadcn Backend: Typescript API Integrations: Gemini (case creation), Hume AI (user communication), Singlestore (data storage), Groq (real-time image descriptions), Google Maps (location services)
Challenges we ran into
🚧 One of the biggest challenges we faced was ensuring transparency and accountability for sponsors managing funds. We had to build a robust system for tracking donations, spending, and progress updates, while also balancing the privacy and dignity of the homeless individuals featured on the platform. Additionally, integrating various APIs seamlessly into the platform posed technical difficulties, particularly in handling real-time updates efficiently.
Accomplishments we're proud of
🏆 We’re incredibly proud of creating a platform that personalizes the homelessness experience, giving a voice to individuals through their stories and enabling real-time impact updates. Our integration of AI technologies for storytelling and real-time image descriptions also makes Elevate more dynamic and accessible, offering transparency at every step. Launching a pilot in San Francisco, one of the hardest-hit cities, was a major milestone for us.
What we learned
📚 We learned that personal stories and community engagement can have a profound impact on raising awareness and support for homelessness. We also gained valuable insights into how to build systems that ensure trust and transparency, which are crucial when managing donations and helping vulnerable populations. Most importantly, we discovered the power of collaboration with local organizations, social workers, and volunteers to amplify our mission.
What's next
🚀 Next, we plan to expand Elevate to other cities facing homelessness crises, growing our network of sponsors and local partners. We aim to automate parts of the profile creation and update processes to scale the platform efficiently. We’re also looking into AI-driven solutions to improve donor-sponsor communication, ensuring that every donation continues to make a visible and impactful difference.
Elevate: Empowering Homeless Individuals through Community Support and Crowdfunding
Project Overview
Elevate is an innovative crowdfunding platform designed to bridge the gap between donors and homeless individuals by fostering direct, transparent relationships. Our mission is to provide personalized support, enable accountability and transparency, and build community engagement to address the homelessness crisis.
This project was developed for Cal Hacks, leveraging Hume AI for emotion analysis and SingleStore for efficient data management.
The Problem
Homelessness remains a persistent and complex challenge in cities across the U.S. As of 2024:
- Approximately 7,200 individuals experience homelessness in San Francisco
- Family homelessness has increased by 94% since 2022
- Over 580,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in the United States
Traditional solutions have not kept pace with the inflow of new individuals and families becoming homeless.
Our Solution
Elevate provides a platform for social workers, volunteers, or community members to become sponsors of homeless individuals, sharing their stories, advocating on their behalf, and raising funds to support their transition out of homelessness.
Key Features
-
Personalized Profiles: Each homeless individual has a dedicated profile including:
- Photo
- Audio story (analyzed by Hume AI for emotion insights)
- Written transcript/blog
-
Sponsorship and Fundraising: Crowdfunding pages for essential needs (shelter, clothing, food, healthcare)
-
Impact Updates: Regular updates on tangible results and progress
-
Community Sharing: Easy social media sharing and progress tracking for donors
-
Emotion Analysis: Utilizing Hume AI to analyze audio stories for deeper emotional understanding
-
Efficient Data Management: Powered by SingleStore for fast, scalable data processing
Technology Stack
- Hume AI: For emotion analysis of audio stories, providing deeper insights into individuals' experiences
- SingleStore: High-performance database for efficient data management and quick retrieval
- [Other technologies used in the project]
Implementation Plan
- Initial Launch: Pilot program in San Francisco
- Platform Development: User-friendly profiles with integrated payment processing
- Partnerships: Collaboration with local non-profits, shelters, and government agencies
- Growth and Expansion: Scale to other cities facing similar challenges
Potential Challenges and Mitigations
- Privacy and Consent: Implement robust consent and data protection measures
- Sponsor Accountability: Require proof of spending and regular updates
- Scalability: Leverage SingleStore for efficient data handling as the platform grows
Acknowledgments
This project was developed for Cal Hacks. Special thanks to Hume AI and SingleStore for providing the technology that makes Elevate possible.
Analysis
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Metric
- 16
- 12
- 11
- 3
Figures cover GitHub contributors during the hackathon window. A co-authored commit counts in full for each author, so per-member totals add up to more than the whole-team figures.
Technology
- CSSIn code
- Google GeminiIn code
- Next.jsIn code
- ReactIn code
- Tailwind CSSIn code
- TypeScriptIn code
6 of 6 appear in the indexed code.
AI coding agents
No AI coding agent signals were found in this repository.
Detected from committed agent config files and commit authorship. Absence of a signal is not proof an agent was unused.
Codebase size
Source size
354 KB
Source files
50
Counts recognized source files only; vendored directories, binaries and lockfiles are excluded, so this is smaller than the repository on disk.
Repository
coderkai03/Elevate
73 files · 2.0 MB · @ c9d584a
Structure
Interface
36 files · 49%Screens, components and styles rendered to the user.
+4 moreAPI & routing
1 file · 1%Request entry points: routes, handlers and controllers.
Application logic
8 files · 11%Domain rules, services and shared utilities.
Data & schema
1 file · 1%Schema definitions, migrations and data access.
Supporting
Layers are inferred from where files sit in the tree, not from reading the code. A project that names its directories unconventionally will read oddly here — open the file browser to check anything the diagram implies.
Languages
- YAML52%
- TypeScript46%
- Markdown1%
- CSS0%
Share of indexed source by file size. Binary and vendored files are excluded.
Dependencies
package.json
npm · 39- @google/generative-ai
- @humeai/voice-react
- @next/env
- @radix-ui/react-dialog
- @radix-ui/react-label
- @radix-ui/react-popover
- @radix-ui/react-slot
- @radix-ui/react-switch
- @radix-ui/react-toggle
- @singlestore/ai
- @singlestore/client
- @types/react-virtualized
- class-variance-authority
- clsx
- framer-motion
- geist
- hume
- lucide-react
- +21 more
Declared in the repository’s manifests at the indexed commit. A declared package is not proof it is used, and runtime dependencies are listed first.
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