NEW YORK - Feb 14, 2019 – This week Heat Seek will be featured in a new piece in The New Yorker magazine. The New Yorker is famous for delivering unparalleled reporting and commentary on everything from politics and foreign affairs to arts & culture and humor.
The new article is called “Seeking Heat,” in the print edition and “Turning Up The Heat on Bad Landlords,” digitally and was written by journalist Jeanie Riess, a member of the editorial staff. The piece outlines the tenant harassment suffered by tenants with predatory landlords and the work Heat Seek is doing to help tenants collect data on chilly apartments.
“I’m thrilled the New Yorker is helping us raise awareness about this issue,” confessed co-founder and Executive Director, Noelle Francois. "Withholding heat from your tenants is unconscionable. All New Yorkers have the right to live in an apartment that is safe, healthy, and warm.”
Founded in late 2014, Heat Seek is a New York City based nonprofit that builds technology to support tenants. The organization plays a dual role as both a tech startup and a mission driven nonprofit helping tenants, community organizers, and lawyers use data to tell stories about housing mismanagement and harassment. With inadequate heat consistently ranking as the #1 complaint made to 311 in the winter months, Heat Seek focuses on building low-cost, web-connected temperature sensors and a companion web application to help tenants document and prove serious and persistent lack of heat in their apartments.
“We believe that technology can be a powerful tool to confront our city’s worst landlords, keeping tenants in their homes and preserving affordable housing,” says Francois.
The organization partners with tenant advocates and legal service providers throughout the city to identify tenants in need of sensors, perform sensor installations, and assist tenants and advocates in using temperature data to drive change through landlord-tenant negotiations and in housing court.
Individuals who would like to purchase a Heat Seek sensor can do so at heatseek.org. You can see the article in the New Yorker online here. “Seeking Heat,” appears in the print edition of the Feb 18 & 25 issue.
ABOUT HEAT SEEK
Heat Seek is a data driven nonprofit working to ensure that tenants throughout New York City have access to rental housing that is safe, healthy, and dignified. Heat Seek builds and installs proprietary web-connected sensors to collect and analyze ambient environmental data, and assists tenants and advocates in using their data to drive change.
HEAT SEEK ON THE WEB
https://www.facebook.com/heatseeknyc
https://twitter.com/heatseeknyc
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For more information on Heat Seek please contact co-founder and Executive Director, Noelle Francois at noelle@heatseek.org.
