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Find It, Fix It

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Find It, Fix It is a mobile app developed by the city of Seattle to report non-emergency issues.

History

The City of Seattle launched Find It, Fix It in 2013 for Android and iOS phones to let citizens report potholes, graffiti, and other problems they observe to the city.[1] The app did not support Windows Phone, making it inaccessible to Microsoft employees in the city who used the company's then-supported mobile operating system.[2]

In 2015, Mayor Ed Murray led a Find It, Fix It walk with about 100 other people, including police officers, in the University District. Participants were encouraged to use the app to report problems they observed in the neighborhood.[3] Later Find It, Fix It walks have taken place in neighborhoods including Crown Hill,[4] First Hill,[5] Belltown,[6] Wallingford,[7] and Highland Park.[8]

In 2020, Find It, Fix It added support for reporting issues with the dockless bicycle sharing systems in the city.[9]

Citing the success of Seattle’s app, the nearby city of Kent, Washington, announced that it would create a similar customer service app.[10]

Usage

Users of Find It, Fix It can submit reports about graffiti, potholes, parking violations, broken street signs, and other issues. The app is designed to use a smartphone’s camera and GPS features to make it easier for users to file reports.[1]

The Atlantic reported in 2018 that Find It, Fix It was being used by neighborhood groups to report homeless encampments with the intention of having authorities remove them, citing examples of campaigns in Ravenna and Ballard.[11] The executive director of Ballard Alliance, a local chamber of commerce for businesses in the neighborhood, used a private Facebook group to encourage business owners to use the app to report homeless encampments.[12] In response to a poster campaign in the summer of 2019 with the slogan “See a tent? Report a tent”, a representative for the mayor’s office and two Seattle City Council members said that it was inappropriate to encourage use of Find It, Fix It to displace homeless people.[13] As a backlash to these campaigns, people living far from Seattle filed hoax complaints using the app, such as by using photos of tents on display at REI stores.[14]

According to the Seattle Times, between January 1, 2020, and November 15, 2021, the city had received over 230,000 service requests, of which 77% were submitted via Find It, Fix It. The largest category of these, numbering over 55,000, concerned illegal dumping. Of complaints categorized as "parking", 3,000 had comments explicitly mentioning issues around homelessness. The ZIP code 98134, covering an industrial area south of Pioneer Square and north of Georgetown, had 5,559 service requests per 1,000 residents, by far the highest in the city.[15]

See also

  • 3-1-1, a phone number used in some cities for non-emergency issues
  • SeeClickFix, a website and app for non-emergency issues

References

  1. ^ a b Cook, John (August 13, 2013). "Tell the City of Seattle about potholes and graffiti with new 'Find It, Fix It' app". GeekWire. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  2. ^ Bishop, Todd (August 14, 2013). "Does Seattle have an obligation to support Windows Phone?". GeekWire. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  3. ^ "City of Seattle asks people to use app to report problems in their neighborhood". KIRO 7 News Seattle. 2015-02-21. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  4. ^ "Find it Fix it Walk with Mayor Ed Murray". Crown Hill Urban Village. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  5. ^ SEAneighborhoods (2017-07-05). "Neighbors invited to First Hill Find It, Fix It Community Walk". Front Porch. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  6. ^ "Belltown Find It, Fix It Community Walk". Front Porch. 2016-06-22. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  7. ^ "Mayor coming to Wallingford for the Find It Fix It Walk on March 14th". Wallyhood. 2017-03-10. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  8. ^ "HIGHLAND PARK FIND IT, FIX IT WALK: Here's the May 25 route, just announced". West Seattle Blog... Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  9. ^ Fucoloro, Tom (2020-04-08). "You can now report bike share parking issues with the city's Find It Fix It app". Seattle Bike Blog. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  10. ^ Apr 12 (2019-04-12). "New 'Find It, Fix It' smartphone app is coming to Kent". I Love Kent. Retrieved 2022-05-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ Hawkins, Dae Shik Kim (June 28, 2018). "An App for Ejecting the Homeless". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  12. ^ Groover, Heidi (December 15, 2017). "Ballard Business Group Wants to Flood the City With Homeless Encampment Complaints". The Stranger. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  13. ^ Smith, Rich (July 22, 2019). "Poster Encourages Seattleites to Narc on Homeless People by Using the "Find It, Fix It" App". The Stranger. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  14. ^ "If you see a grumpy old man, report a grumpy old man". www.realchangenews.org. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  15. ^ Balk, Gene (March 19, 2022). "Seattle residents' top complaints revealed in Find It, Fix It app". The Seattle Times. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
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