5 Startups Bringing Housing to All

October 31st marks the 12th edition of the UN’s World Cities Day. Each year a global observance is hosted in a different city with a core theme, the event gathers high profile speakers, thematic forums, and an award ceremony to present the winner of the Shanghai award, an award given to a city that shows good progress in implementing the UN sustainable development goals. This year Fuzhou, China will play host to the multi-day event. Originally started in 2014, this celebration brings Urban October to an end.

Paying attention to the sustainable development of cities is incredibly important, as more and more people flock to them. In 1950 around 751 million people lived in urban areas, in 2018 that number was 4.2 billion, and its expected to continue to rise. The United Nations estimates that 68% of the population will live in cities by 2050, compared to approximately 55% today. However, this growth comes with major challenges, many cities lack the infrastructure and strategies needed to scale successfully. Growing populations can put strain on healthcare systems, housing, transport, and power grids.

Tech is playing a vital role in creating the cities of tomorrow. From more sustainable designs, to connecting AI to make everyday utilities run more efficiently, startups and tech giants alike are leading the charge turning ambitious ideas into concrete innovations.

This year the theme of World Cities Day is “Regenerating the City: Adequate Housing for All.” So today we are focusing on startups that support housing for all and helping people experiencing homelessness find stability and the help they need to thrive.

Meet the Startups

Get to know five startups taking a different approach to fight homelessness and use technology as a force for good

ICON

Icon fights homelessness by addressing housing shortages and reducing construction costs and time making it cheaper and easier for people to find permanent housing. They created specialty machines to 3D print houses, they have two main models the Titan and the Vulcan. The Titan is for multi-story construction and the Vulcan for single story buildings.

To address the global housing crisis, something radical and courageous needs to happen,” said Jason Ballard, Co-Founder & CEO of ICON. “Construction-scale 3D printing is designed to not only deliver high-quality homes faster and more affordably, but fleets of printers can change the way entire communities are built for the better.

ICON has partnered with Mobile Loaves and Fishes, an Austin based non profit to build the Community First! Village in East Austin, a village dedicated to creating housing and community for the chronically homeless in Austin. So far they have built over 100 houses both single family homes and townhouses. They have also built several community based buildings including a nearly 500 square foot welcome center.

Mini City Inc

This Atlanta-based startup offers a portal for accessing and maintaining their identity documents, one of the most crucial steps to getting them connected to care. The majority of assistance programs in the US require identification to enroll or maintain their benefits, which can pose a barrier to access for the people who need the help the most. This is where Mini City comes in, the SaaS company offers a portal where the homeless can access digital versions of their important state and national documents, giving them access to the help they need.

The startup is split into two main interfaces, the Citizen portal is designed for those in need. In the portal they can access a resource hub dedicated to helping them reach employment through preparedness courses, partner job offerings, skill training, and auto generated documents such as resumes or cover letters. It also functions as a one stop shop for access and applications for a variety of benefits or support systems that are available, such as food stamps, medicaid, and getting registered to vote.

The caseworker portal which is used by community based organizations to maintain records and information about the citizens in their care. This all in one portal helps manage their caseload, by keeping all the key information in one place, they can track birth record requests to see any progress, and easily find analytics of their impacts - a key step in obtaining grants and donations. So far they have trained over 100 caseworkers and brought impact to over 3,000 people in need.

Samaritain

Samaritan pushes to address the social isolation that is common in the homeless population in conjunction with financial aid to create a community of support and a path to improved outcomes.

The start up functions on a three step model,

1. Care teams establish contact with the vulnerable population and create an action plan. The action plan can include steps like registering for benefits, obtaining ID, or filling prescriptions, all things that will improve their patients lives and increase self sufficiency.
2. Patients are given upfront financial support and a team to support them in their journey. The team functions as their personal village, it is filled with workers and volunteers that support the patient, sending encouraging messages, ongoing financial aid, and the knowledge they are cared for, which is a crucial component in their journey.
3. Members can earn financial bonuses by completing steps in their action plan. These benefits reinforce engagement and help encourage positive steps, keeping people moving forward and toward their goals.

By providing social and financial aid to those in need they have changed the lives of hundreds of participants across the US. Their innovative method has shown great results, with -54% lower cost of care and 21% reduced emergency department use. They also boast very comprehensive case study pages from around the country, with members going from long term homeless to stable jobs, housing, medical care, and more.

Beam

This UK-based startup works to combat homelessness by enabling social workers and councils to focus on the work that matters. The platform uses AI to make social workers jobs easier and give them crucial time back. Beam streamlines the admin parts of the job, reducing time spent on taking notes and submitting reports, allowing them to do more of the crucial work to improve the lives of their clients. Between translation services, automatic note taking, talk agents, and in-house caseworkers they assist in the places that matter most, making it possible for caseworkers to better connect and care for their clients.

They have partnered with a variety of councils across the UK and recently expanded to the US and Australia. Their users report massive reduction in time spent on admin, better conversation quality, and improved documentation across adult and child social care, homelessness outreach, employment advisors, and healthcare workers.

When working in an industry where trust is everything, Beam takes the trust their customers have in them seriously and boasts a long list of data privacy and cybersecurity certifications including HIPPA compliant, APP compliant, GDPR compliant, ISO27001 certified, NHS compliant, and more.

Outreach Grid

Founded by two ex Silicon Valley engineers, Outreach Grid works to connect the variety of existing teams and organizations doing outreach for the homeless. They offer a small suite of tools designed for different roles in the support community.

They offer five main tools to support their communities:

1. Outreach: This allows for caseworkers and community members to create contact with at risk and vulnerable individuals and manage their case at each step. Case workers can share information on the locations and needs of their clients to local outreach groups to give care or critical supplies. In this profile they can also keep all necessary assessments and forms digitized in one place for easy record keeping.
2. Casework Management: Record and track client progress from first content to permanent housing and collaborate with different teams directly, attaching referral for ID documents, medical care, and more all in one profile. In this clients can report their status and location directly to keep their caseworker informed or request critical aid.
3. Shelter: Shelters and caseworkers can directly connect and manage bed availability, reservations, and make sure clients match the eligibility requirements for the beds. Making it easier for shelter managers to prepare and maintain accurate inventory, as well as manage bed requests or additional accommodations needed in one place. They can also flag client no shows, and their history in a shelter.
4. Housing: The platform connects landlords and property managers with caseworkers to make one point of contact to fill vacant units with those in need of housing. The site offers advanced searching for qualifying properties and sending applications.
5. Point-In-Time Management: Point-in-time counts is a method of getting an idea of the amount of homeless people in an area at one point in time, where volunteers and workers will go through a town or city and manually count every homeless person. They offer two solutions to make it easier. The first is software for managers to easily organize and track results and create the reports needed seamlessly. They also have an app for volunteers with tools and forms they can submit, that maintains the count even without internet connection, with all their data funneling to the managers reports.

These tools have been adopted by cities and communities across the United States, especially popular in California, their home state.

Find Startups like this at VivaTech

Startups like these show how much power technology has to make our world better, fighting the inequities of life and supporting the most vulnerable among us. For more startups working to improve the world see our Tech for Change participants or stop by the Impact Village at VivaTech 2027.