ID Bridge
ID Bridge is an app to help unhoused individuals progressively build a verifiable portfolio of documents and recommendations to secure long-term housing.
Awarded First Place in Google Designathon 🏆.
Role
Product Designer - Narrowed research, found support for user needs, created styling, and visual design.
Design Skills
Figma, Figjam, Google docs, Accessibility Design, User Research, AI Research
Type
Designathon - 6 hours, 2025
Overview
Problem
Unhoused individuals face barriers to housing due to difficulties verifying identity. There's a need for simple, trusted tools to help them build and share verifiable documentation.
Solution
An app that connects unhoused individuals that verifies documents and referrals to help find long-term housing. Think of it as an “Identity Bridge” between people, shelters, and agencies — lightweight, offline-friendly, and privacy-first.
The anxiety from not knowing if you have a home for the night or next day is a global concern.
01 Wasted Trips
"I walked four miles with a backpack and a hurt knee to get to a shelter that their website said had beds, only to be told they’ve been full since 4 PM."
02 Loss of ID and Documentation
"If you lose your ID, you lose your life. Nothing starts without it, and replacing it is a loop that takes months and money I don't have."
Problem Space
Unhoused individuals face barriers to housing due to difficulties verifying identity. There's a need for simple, trusted tools to help them build and share verifiable documentation.
Specific Goal #1
Help unhoused individuals manage their identification and documentation
Specific Goal #2
Help provide unhoused individuals with online and offline access to their data
HMW
How might we build trust-centered, accessible tools that help unhoused individuals verify their identity and eligibility so they can more easily secure long-term housing?
Designathon Goal
How can we use AI to accelerate and leverage our process during research and design?
Researching online forums and articles, using AI to condense the information.
We began our research searching for key information regarding what user pain points were when finding shelter and what they needed. I researched on Gemini and Reddit to find relevant data that backed up the top 5 concerns when it comes to unhoused individuals.
Identification
Used AI + Google to identify potential research papers and problem spaces.
Reddit Research
A lot of unhoused individuals wrote about losing their ID and can't find a way to get verified.
Takeaway 01
“In the survey, more than half of participants (53%) noted a lack of documents as a barrier to finding permanent housing”
- The California Statewide Study
of People Experiencing Homelessness, 2023
Takeaway 02
“The hardest thing and the most consistent barrier to housing was that a lot of my clients did not have any identification and had no pathway to getting any.”
- Reddit User (echoed by many others)
Research Finding Summary
Through our research, we found that identification to find long term housing was a common concern with unhoused individuals.
How can we make getting identified easy?
We shared ideas in a circle until we identified solutions for the gaps. We wrote down key features in a list on Google Docs of we wanted to include through rapid ideation.
Ideas we jotted
Feature 01
Chat Bot - Provides next steps
Feature 02
Feature 03
Documentation Trail - Upload Info
Feature 04
Social Worker Connection - Ability to speak to a representative.
Feature 05
Choice on what to share with social workers
Information Architecture
Key Features on each page.
User Flow
The goal is to find pre-approved shelter.
Took most important features that differentiate our app and created wireframes
Moodboard
We took inspiration from other government apps that were simple and straightforward.
