Gretchen Keillor’s new data project – Understanding Homelessness: “From the system perspective, a society with a lack of supportive and health services, a suffering economy, or a lack of affordable housing can be challenging for individuals on the brink of homelessness. From an individual perspective, these people can be classified as those unable to work without assistance, those able to work but are unemployed, and those who are employed. The grey areas in between, where the individual can’t seem to succeed within the broader socio-political environment (however flawed it may be), is where conflicts happen that result in someone heading toward homelessness.”

“The intent of this work is to help overcome negative stigmas about people experiencing homelessness through education, bring transparency to the geolocated data that exists about the homelessness issue in the United States, and provide inspiration and solutions for city officials, organizations, and citizens to approach this challenge with hope. We seek to apply innovative visualization and communication techniques to the study of this population which is so often overlooked. This project is sponsored by Sasaki through an internal research grant program. Begun in 2015, the work has drawn upon the expertise of our team of planners, designers, and software developers, combined with valuable insights from organizations who work with the homeless every day. We welcome your questions and comments at [email protected].”