A new AI assistant, Roxanne the Repair Bot, has been launched in New York City to help bridge the housing justice gap by providing tenants with accessible and actionable information to address substandard housing conditions
Housing justice — seen as the proliferation of substandard housing conditions and a persistent lack of repair and upkeep — is a persistent gap in New York City. While tenants in the city have many rights relating to the safety and quality of their housing, there is a stark difference between these rights and the reality that tenants endure. Indeed, tenants should expect to live in safe, well-maintained buildings that are free from vermin, leaks, and hazardous conditions, but health and safety are far from guaranteed in the city’s housing network.
And this can have disastrous consequences. In January 2022, for example, 17 people died in a preventable fire at the Twin Parks North West apartment complex in the Bronx. “Basic safety measures, like self-closing doors, were left unchecked. The small fire spread across a building as a result and suffocated people far away from the source of the fire,” says Sateesh Nori, a Senior Legal Innovation Strategist at Just-Tech and a housing attorney in NYC.
Indeed, this terrible event shows the dangers of housing repairs not being done across the city. Nori explains how tenants living in city-owned housing continue to suffer through broken elevators and other serious conditions, even as the city implements new policies to fix public housing apartments. “The impact of housing conditions falls squarely on the most vulnerable people, like children and the elderly, who suffer serious health issues like asthma from preventable conditions like leaks and mold,” Nori adds.
To address part of the housing justice gap, Nori was instrumental in launching a new AI assistant, Roxanne the Repair Bot, a groundbreaking tool developed through a collaboration between Housing Court Answers (HCA), a nonprofit organization specializing in tenancy law, and legal tech company Josef. Roxanne addresses a critical gap in the NYC housing landscape — the lack of accessible, actionable information for tenants dealing with substandard housing conditions.
Jenny Laurie, Executive Director of HCA says with the new Roxanne app, NYC renters can now get instant answers to all their rental repair questions. “Renting law and regulations in New York are notoriously complicated and hard to digest, so with Roxanne, we’ve made rental repairs guidance both easy to access and understand,” Laurie says.
Roxanne’s journey from development to implementation
The idea for Roxanne was born from the observation that the disparity in resources for housing condition issues was related to Nori’s efforts at eviction prevention. Nori then initiated a collaboration between HCA and Josef to leverage AI in bridging this gap.
The team developed a prototype that combined the capability of Josef’s Q platform with HCA’s extensive knowledge resources about repair issues. The benefit in using Josef’s platform is that the HCA staff did not need to learn anything new to create and work with the tool. It works like a simple chat interface.
Initially, Roxanne was designed to assist HCA’s frontline staff in answering queries by providing valuable insights into common housing issues, offering effective answers, and directing users to areas for advocacy in housing law. Over time, however, Roxanne evolved to a point to which it could be directly accessed by tenants themselves. The tech team creating the app rigorously tested Roxanne for more than six months to ensure optimal accuracy and trust.
Challenges and lessons learned
The development of Roxanne was not without its hurdles, however. Three main challenges emerged during the process development and implementation stages, according to Nori, including:
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- Trust — There was initial skepticism among HCA staff about the use of AI. Overcoming this required patience and a demonstration of Roxanne the Repair Bot’s effectiveness.
- Accuracy — While Roxanne initially outperformed human workers in accuracy, the team aimed for an even higher standard of more than 95% accuracy to ensure widespread acceptance and adoption.
- Safety & compliance — A third challenge is to make sure that the tool protects the privacy of the users and complies with regulations and laws on non-lawyer legal help. These rules around the unauthorized practice of law are being tested continuously as AI expands its capabilities to provide actionable legal help directly to the public.
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There is no doubt that the development of Roxanne was an experiment and a process of learning. For others looking to use AI and technology to address access to justice issues, Nori explains that the primary lesson learned from Roxanne was how it highlights the importance of patience and trusting the process. While Nori was initially eager to launch quickly, the team’s decision to take more time ultimately resulted in a more robust and public-ready tool.
Roxanne the Repair Bot represents a significant step forward in using AI to promote housing justice. By providing tenants with easy access to crucial information about their rights and options, this innovative tool has the potential to improve living conditions and health outcomes for many New Yorkers. As we look to the future, Roxanne serves as an inspiring example of how technology, lawyers, and non-profit advocates can work hand in hand to create meaningful improvements in the lives of many.
You can find out more about how technology is helping further the cause of justice here
