{"id":19524,"date":"2015-11-24T12:36:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-24T18:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=19524"},"modified":"2015-12-07T15:26:51","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T21:26:51","slug":"mrelief-brings-social-service-relief-to-chicago-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/mrelief-brings-social-service-relief-to-chicago-residents\/","title":{"rendered":"mRelief uses technology to help Chicago’s needy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eve Fan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rose Afriyie still remembers the day she spent more than two hours waiting outside a community service center on the South Side of Chicago, only to find out that she was ineligible for food stamps.<\/p>\n

That experience was the inspiration for mRelief<\/a>, a web and texting tool for social services eligibility screening that Afriyie hopes will make life a little easier for those experiencing poverty and hunger.
\n<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a>, 25 percent of eligible people in the U.S. in fiscal 2010 did not enroll for SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.<\/p>\n

mRelief offers pre-screening for 12 city and state\u00a0programs, including food stamps, Medicaid,\u00a0and child care assistance programs, and the web app is available in both English and Spanish.<\/p>\n

Users may go online to fill out a form and learn their eligibility for certain programs, or simply use their phones to text “hello” to 773-377-8946. After answering a few questions, including income and education status, users find out whether they qualify for services.<\/p>\n

Though more than 60 percent of American adults own a smartphone, according to the Pew Research Center<\/a>, and Chicago residents can access the Internet for free at their local public library, Afriyie still thinks the resources for low-income families online or through cellphones are limited.<\/p>\n

\"RoseAfriyie\"<\/a>
Rose Afriyie, co-founder of mRelief, is introducing the social service screening tool at a Women Tech Founders’ event in October.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“There is not a lot of technology built for people who have the lowest income or the greatest needs,” said Afriyie, one of the three co-founders of mRelief, in an interview.\u00a0“Our focus is on accessibility. Whether you understand the Internet or not, you should be able to find certain things.”<\/p>\n

Afriyie graduated from the University of Michigan with a master’s degree in public policy in 2011. She worked \u00a0in various communications jobs, then spent a year as a fellow in Google+’s Community Partnerships Program that works with entrepreneurs and advocates\u00a0to learn Google marketing strategies and principles.<\/p>\n

When the fellowship ended in the spring of 2014, Afriyie said she was struggling financially. Eager to find a way out, she enrolled in a course at The Starter League<\/a>,\u00a0a Chicago-based programming and web design school.<\/p>\n

There, Afriyie met Genevieve Nielsen\u00a0and\u00a0Marina Goldshteyn, and her story inspired them to begin developing social service screening tools. That was in June, 2014. By September the trio had\u00a0launched mRelief for use on the web.<\/p>\n

In November, they launched their SMS, or texting, tool at business incubator 1871<\/a>\u2019s Open Government Hack Night<\/a>. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had issued an open call for better social service delivery for low-income residents, which propelled adoption of mRelief\u2019s tools.<\/p>\n

\"Gate_of_1871\"<\/a>
mRelief was launched\u00a0\u00a0in November 2014 at small business incubator 1871. (Eve Fan\/Medill)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tools were first introduced to six community service centers in Chicago for social programs caseworkers and gradually spread its wings through peer-to-peer recommendations and technology events. Within its first two weeks, the SMS\u00a0tool processed about 10,000 text messages.<\/p>\n

mRelief services are free and sponsored by\u00a0Goodcity<\/a>, a Chicago-based social services organization. The SMS tool was supported by\u00a0Smart Chicago<\/a>,\u00a0with the\u00a0John S. and James L. Knight Foundation\u00a0providing $15,000 in seed funding for the team.<\/p>\n

Caseworkers, according to Afriyie, usually spend 16 minutes on average on social service eligibility screening, but around 4 minutes while screening with mRelief.<\/p>\n

Some non-smartphone users may experience delays, according to Sonja Marziano, project coordinator at Smart Chicago, based\u00a0on a\u00a0testing of mRelief earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The team now is\u00a0applying for not-for-profit status, but earns revenue from SaaS (software as a service, a software licensing and delivery model), contracts, and donations, and has expanded to an eight-member team.<\/p>\n

CORRECTION:<\/strong> An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized Rose Afriyie\u2019s work history. Afriyie completed a year-long fellowship with Google+ in the spring of 2014. She did not lose her job. Also, mRelief offers pre-screening for 12 city and state programs, not 14; and only the company\u2019s software team is all women, not the entire company.<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo at top: To check social programs eligibilities on mRelief, users may go online or simply text \u201chello\u201d to 773-377-8946. (Eve Fan\/Medill<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eve Fan Rose Afriyie still remembers the day she spent more than two hours waiting outside a community service center on the South Side of Chicago, only to find out that she was ineligible for food stamps. That experience was the inspiration for mRelief, a web and texting tool for social services eligibility screening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":19760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,509],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-fall-2015"],"yoast_head":"\nmRelief uses technology to help Chicago's needy - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/mrelief-brings-social-service-relief-to-chicago-residents\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"mRelief uses technology to help Chicago's needy - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Eve Fan Rose Afriyie still remembers the day she spent more than two hours waiting outside a community service center on the South Side of Chicago, only to find out that she was ineligible for food stamps. 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