1. Hackney CAB Crowdmap
Sharing Stories on the impact
of Housing Benefit cuts in Hackney

2. Hackney CAB Crowdmap
 Sharing stories on the impact of housing
benefit changes in Hackney
 Aims: To raise awareness and provide people
with information on options and where to get
help
 www.hackneycabcrowdmap.com
 @hcabcrowdmap on Twitter
 Hackney CAB Crowdmap on Facebook

3. Crowdmap - How it started
 Ushahidi ‘testimony’ or ‘witness’ - group of developers
and bloggers in Kenya
 Developed open source software to share and map
reports of violence in Kenya in the post-election
violence in January 2008
 www.ushahidi.com
 Crowdmap software - off-the-shelf version of Ushahidi
 www.fixyourstreet.ie - South Dublin county council
 www.immigrantharassment.com - Arizonans Unite

4. Crowdmap - How does it work?
 Crowdmap provides you with -
 A website
 With a live map of any selected geographical location
 To which you can add your own geographical and dated
reports
 And you can invite people to add their own reports
 Live map - adds time dimension to geographical data
 As reports are added, you can create a snapshot of reports
at any time and play through a timeline to demonstrate how
and where reports have been added
 All for free!

5. Hackney CAB Crowdmap project
 Working Title - Hackney CAB Crowdmap
 Mapping impact of Housing Benefit shortfalls in
Hackney
 Affects approx 8000 households in private rented
accommodation in Hackney, almost 10% of the
borough
 Average shortfall £40 per week
 Reporting bureau and other agency enquiries
 Public reports

6. Hackney CAB Crowdmap project
 The project collects stories of how people are affected
and how they are coping
 Pointing people towards resources and help available
in Hackney
 Information on options
 Blog posts - most recently on landlord mystery
shopping exercise to see how many properties
available to Housing Benefit tenants - we found 14 out
of 1600!

7. Hackney CAB Crowdmap project
 Open to local community to report directly and to
share their stories - to know that they are not alone
and that there is help out there
 Bring people together over the issue
 Provides a route to advice on the related issues - on
options available and how to get help and advice in
Hackney
 Awareness raising
 Compiles the stories of those affected in one place
over time - so that we can build a picture of how the
community is affected by the Housing Benefit changes

8. Hackney CAB Crowdmap project
 Issues we needed to consider for
the project
 Anonymity
 How we use the service
 How the public use the service
 Reaching out to public to share
stories

9. Partners
 Local advice organisations
 Homelessness and Tenancy support
services
 Parent support groups
 Local government

10. Data
 Hackney Council data modelling
research
 8000 affected households
 Welfare Reform working group
 Welfare Reform Impact Dashboard

11. Resources
 Three social policy volunteers at Hackney
CAB
 Young Foundation mentoring and support
 Pro bono web support and free hosting from
Base Creative
 Volunteer designer on photography and
design
 Free and easy to use software - Crowdmap
and Wordpress (with free hosting options)

12. The Young Foundation
 Applied to Building Local Activism programme in
summer 2011
 Support and mentoring
 Help with building Wordpress website around
Crowdmap
 Pro bono help from Base Creative web design
 Constant source of support from advice on political
and press issues, to practical help with landlord
survey, street leafleting, workshops
 Helped to make the website a much richer resource
and the project more ambitious and far-reaching

13. Hackney CAB Crowdmap project
Outcomes so far:
 Other bureaux and orgs running
Crowdmap projects
 London Assembly
 DWP research
 Hackney Scrutiny Review on Housing
Benefit changes
 Local workshops

14. Please get in touch -
You can contact me at Hackney CAB on email:
Catherine Dempsey - cdempsey@eastendcab.org.uk