Jennifer Gilbert (’95), Founder and Executive Director of Housing Navigator Massachusetts, was quoted in conversation with Housing Matters discussing the challenges subsidized housing seekers face in searching across multiple online platforms (“A New Way to Help People Find a Home: Creating Affordable Home Finding Platforms,” Jul. 19). “People don’t realize it’s harder to find affordable housing than it is to build it; I say that as somebody whose career was building affordable housing. All the people who the housing is intended for do not have the convenience of finding housing on things like Zillow. We need to create the inventory so that can power a search tool that gives people the power and agency to find housing that works for them.” On her work creating Housing Navigator, Jennifer said, “We went live about two years ago and it’s been incredible. We get 30,000 visitors a month; somebody starts a search about once a minute. We’re a state that is 7 million people, and the universe for the tool is about 1 million people, so we see high levels of engagement.”
