Hi folks - <br clear="all"><div><br></div><div>As an introduction: I&#39;m working with local non-profits that service low-income people in the District of Columbia, and one of the common problems (which we seem to share with communities everywhere) is the lack of a comprehensive directory for what resources (food pantries, public housing, health care, etc) are available in the community. (<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sntMVolLvbhpAFvM0L9pHlcp0LXwXiqcRF89MqZbUGM/edit#heading=h.1adwzueis5zw">We&#39;ve written up a brief about this problem here</a>.)</div>

<div><br></div><div>Later this month, I&#39;ll try to tackle this project as part of <a href="http://provisionslibrary.com/?page_id=16614">a research residency</a>. We have access to at least three large databases of social services that we can try to merge together and make usable and peer-productive, so to speak. I can assemble a team of social workers, software developers, data geeks, and regular users.  </div>

<div><br></div><div>I wonder if the Wikidata project could be what our effort needs -- whether our developers could experiment with your technology to try to merge and open up these community resource data sets. If so, how would I go about exploring that opportunity? If however the time is not yet ripe, you may have other valuable insights for us as we undertake this experiment.</div>

<div><br></div><div>Thanks for any help you can offer!</div>-- <br><font face="garamond, serif">• <a href="http://flavors.me/gjb" target="_blank">gjb</a> •<br></font><div><span style="font-size:x-small"><font face="garamond, serif">202.643.3648</font></span></div>