Open Doors Atlanta, a nonprofit with innovative new solutions for addressing homelessness, celebrated the release of its new Property Locator App 2.0 with a launch party on April 23rd.
The 2.0 version of the app gives human services organizations the ability to search for client housing by price and location, or by the type of government subsidy accepted by each property. The app also includes accurate, automatically updated listings of available units that include floor plans, photos and pricing by unit.
RentPath, an Atlanta-based digital marketing solutions company that operates Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com, spearheaded the project for Open Doors. Beginning in 2016, RentPath’s CEO Marc Lefar, not only created the initial vision but also deployed intellectual property and technical talent to the development.
To expedite production, Lefar recruited additional tech volunteers from Charter Global, an IT consulting company based in Atlanta. Charter Global’s co-founder and chief business officer, Deven Reddy, a twenty-year friend of Lefar’s, quickly responded to the call.
April’s launch party celebrated a combined team of 18 engineers who wrote 80,000 lines of code and donated 2,000 hours to ready the new version for launch. Charter Global hosted the cocktail reception at its headquarters in Sandy Springs.
RentPath’s Senior Director of Engineering, Stu Hume, made a presentation highlighting the app’s improved capability to a group of about 50 gathered, including Open Doors board members and executive leaders from both RentPath and Charter Global. Later in the evening, Hume received the Open Doors “Volunteer of the Year” award for his devotion to the project and his dedication to fighting homelessness.
The initial version of the Property Locator App has been in testing since late 2017. Since that time, it has helped place 1,000+ people into safe, affordable homes. The 2.0 version expands the app’s underlying capacity, creating the ability for Open Doors to serve additional markets beyond Atlanta.
