Homelessness Data Conversion

The San Diego Data Library is building a detailed data set about Downtown homelessness using 5 years of hand-marked paper maps. The conversion process is human-powered, and we need you help to finish the conversion. When we are finished, we will have a very valuable data for doing detailed analysis of the relationship between unsheltered homeless people and the downtown environment, exploring factors such as restrooms, vacant lots, and the presence of services.

Join other civic-minded volunteers to help convert the final few files and get started on the data analysis at our next meeting: Wednesday, October 9, at WeWork, 600B

At the meeting, you will be using a web based tool to work through the remaining tasks. These tasks involve using a web based tool to draw circles around hand written marks on scanned paper maps. Here is an example of one of the maps with the circle annotations.

These marks will be added to the final dataset, resulting in a detailed dataset of homeless person positions in Downtown San Diego. Here is a map of the data points we have so far.

When we’re finished, we will start doing the analysis to answer questions that researchers and policy experts have asked that we can answer with this dataset, primarily questions related to how homeless people cluster depending on changes landuse, restrooms, and other services.

If you’d like to help, join the Meetup event, and we’ll see you in October.