Our project focused on the City of Vancouver’s challenge of food systems and food security in relation to climate change. As global temperatures continue to rise, Vancouver may experience more extreme weather events, including storms, droughts, flooding, and other natural disasters. These events can make it harder for people to access basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and reliable emergency information. The problem we identified was that many of Vancouver’s current online emergency resources are difficult to follow, especially during a stressful situation. The information can feel scattered, overwhelming, or written in language that is not easy for everyone to understand. Our goal was to create a more accessible and organized tool that helps people find support quickly during a disaster.

Our project solves this problem through three main features: an interactive map, a community post page, and disaster information specific to the Lower Mainland. The map allows users to search for nearby centers based on what they need, such as food, shelter, or water. It also lets users vote on how much supply is available at each location, using options like none, low, medium, or high. The community post page helps people ask for help or offer help, with filters to make posts easier to sort through. The disaster information section includes an AI chat box and downloadable guides with an overview and a to-do list for different disasters. Through this project, we learned how difficult it can be for people to find clear, specific information during an emergency. We also learned how powerful community communication can be when people work together. We recommend that Vancouver continue improving emergency resources by making them simpler, more localized, and easier to access before and during a disaster.

Next Steps

We have shared RouteRelief with our BCIT classmates and instructors, but we did not have a City staff partner for this project. While the app is not currently being implemented in the community, we are proud of everything we built and the progress we made over the term. RouteRelief was designed with real users in mind, helping people feel less alone and more prepared during natural disasters by providing disaster guides, community posts, real support locations, and an AI assistant. Although there are no immediate plans for a public launch, the foundation we built is strong, and there is potential to continue developing it in the future. Features like email verification, a volunteer sign-up system, and an admin panel are areas we would love to explore if we continue working on it. We would also love to add multilingual support to the app. During an emergency, being able to read critical information in your own language could make a huge difference. This project taught us a lot about agile teamwork, learning on the fly, and building something meaningful, and we hope RouteRelief can one day make a real difference in someone’s life during an emergency.